HILDA 


A  STORY  OF  CALCUTTA 


BY 

SARAH  JEANETTE  DUNCAN 
(MRS.  EVERARD  COTES) 

I  Author  of  "  A  Social  Departure,"  "  An  American  Girl  in  London," 

>  »«  His  Honour  and  a  Lady,"  "  A  Voyage  of  Consolation," 

=  «  Vernon's  Aunt,"  "  A  Daughter  of  To-day,"  etc 


1r 


NEW  YORK 
FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


I' 


Copyright,  1898 
By  Frbdbrick  A.  Stokes  Company 


3 


87779 


'■  i  ' 


" 


HILDA. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Miss  Howe  pushed  the  portiere  aside  with  a  curved 
hand  and  gracefully  separated  fingers ;  it  was  a  stac- 
cato movement,  and  her  body  followed  it  after  an  in- 
stant's poise  of  hesitation,  head  thrust  a  little  forward, 
eyes  inquiring,  and  a  tentative  smile,  although  she 
knew  precisely  who  was  there.  You  would  have  been 
aware  at  once  that  she  was  an  actress.  She  entered 
the  room,  with  a  little  stride,  and  then  crossed  it 
quickly,  the  train  of  her  morning  gown — it  cried  out 
of  luxury  with  the  cheapest  voice — taking  folds  of 
great  audacity,  as  she  bent  her  face  in  its  loose  mass  of 
hair  over  Laura  Filbert,  sitting  on  the  edge  of  a  bam- 
boo sofa,  and  said — 

"  You  poor  thing !     Oh,  you  poor  thing  ! " 

She  took  Laura's  hand  as  she  spoke,  and  tried  to 
keep  it ;  but  the  hand  was  neutral,  and  she  let  it  go. 
**  It  is  a  hand,"  she  said  to  herself,  in  one  of  those 
quick  reflections  that  so  often  visited  her  ready-made, 
"  that  turns  the  merely  inquiring  mind  away.  Noth- 
ing but  passion  could  hold  it." 

Miss  Filbert  made  the  conventional  effort  to  rise, 
but  it  came  to  nothing,  or  to  a  mere  embarrassed  ac- 
cent of  their  greeting.    Then  her  voice  showed  this 


2  HILDA. 

feeling  to  be  merely  superficial,  made  nothing  of  it, 
pushed  it  to  one  side. 

"  I  suppose  you  cannot  see  the  foolishness  of  your 
pity,"  she  said.  "  Oh,  Miss  Howe,  I  am  happier  than 
you  are — much  happier."  Her  bare  feet,  as  she  spoke, 
nestled  into  the  coarse  Mirzapore  rug  on  the  floor,  and 
her  eye  lingered  approvingly  upon  an  Owari  vase  three 
foot  l;iigh,  and  thick  with  the  gilded  landscape  of  Japan 
which  stood  near  it,  in  the  cheap  magnificence  of  the 
squalid  room. 

Hilda  smiled.  Her  smile  acquiesced  in  the  world 
she  had  found,  acquiesced  with  the  gladness  of  an  ex- 
plorer in  Laura  Filbert  as  a  feature  of  it. 

"  Don't  be  too  sure,"  she  cried ;  "  I  am  very  happy. 
It  is  such  a  pleasure  to  see  you." 

Her  gaze  embraced  Miss  Filbert  as  a  person  and 
Miss  Filbert  as  a  pictorial  fact ;  but  that  was  because 
she  could  not  help  it.  Her  eyes  were  really  engaged 
only  with  the  latter  Miss  Filbert. 

"  Much  happier  than  you  are,"  Laura  repeated, 
slowly  moving  her  head  from  side  to  side,  as  if  to  neg- 
ative contradiction  in  advance.  She  smiled  too;  it  was  as 
if  she  had  remembered  a  former  habit,  from  politeness. 

"  Of  course  you  are — of  course ! "  Miss  Howe  ac- 
knowledged. The  words  were  mellow  and  vibrant; 
her  voice  seemed  to  dwell  upon  them  with  a  kind  of 
rich  affection.  Her  face  covered  itself  with  serious 
sweetness.  "  I  can  imagine  the  beatitudes  you  feel — 
by  your  clothes." 

The  girl  drew  her  feet  under  her,  and  her  hand  went 
up  to  the  only  semi-conventional  item  of  her  attire. 
It  was  a  brooch  that  exclaimed  in  silver  letters,  "  Glory 
to  His  Name ! "    "  It  is  the  dress  of  the  Army  in  this 


»    ■■:> 


^  t 


HILDA.  3 

country,"  she  said  ;   "  I  would  not  change  it  for  the 
wardrobe  of  any  queen.** 

"That's  just  what  I  mean."  Miss  Howe  leaned 
back  in  her  chair  with  her  head  among  its  cushions, 
and  sent  her  words  fluently  across  the  room,  straight 
and  level  with  the  glance  from  between  her  half-closed 
eyelids.  A  fine  sensuous  appreciation  of  the  indolence 
it  was  possible  to  enjoy  in  the  East  clung  about  her. 
"  To  live  on  a  plane  that  lifts  you  up  like  that — so  that 
you  can  defy  all  criticism  and  all  convention,  and  go 
about  the  streets  like  a  mark  of  exclamation  at  the 
selfishness  of  the  world — there  must  be  something  very 
consummate  in  it  or  you  couldn't  go  on.  At  least  I 
couldn't." 

"  I  suppose  I  do  look  odd  to  you."  Her  voice  took 
a  curious  soft,  uplifted  note.  "  I  wear  three  garments 
only — the  garments  of  my  sisters  who  plant  the  young 
shoots  in  the  rice-fields,  and  carry  bricks  for  the  build- 
ing of  rich  men's  houses,  and  gather  the  dung  of  the 
roadways  to  burn  for  fuel.  If  the  Army  is  to  conquer 
India  it  must  march  bare-footed  and  bare-headed  all 
the  way.  All  the  way,"  Laura  repeated,  with  a 
tremor  of  musical  sadness.  Her  eyes  were  fixed  in 
soft  appeal  upon  the  other  woman's. 

"And  if  the  sun  beats  down  upon  my  uncovered 
head,  I  think,  *  it  struck  more  fiercely  upon  Calvary  * ; 
and  if  the  way  is  sharp  to  my  unshod  feet,  I  say,  *At 
least  I  have  no  cross  to  bear.*  **  The  last  words  seemed 
almost  a  chant,  and  her  voice  glided  from  them  into 
singing — 

"  The  blessed  Saviour  died  for  me, 
On  the  cross !    On  the  cross ! 
He  bore  my  sins  at  Calvary, 
On  the  rugged  cross ! " 


\ 


4  HILDA. 

She  sang  softly,  her  body  thrust  a  little  forward  in 
a  tender  swaying — 

"  Behold  His  hands  and  feet  and  side, 
The  crown  of  thorns,  the  crimson  tide. 
'  Forgive  them.  Father  ! '  loud  he  cried, 
On  the  rugged  cross !  " 

"  Oh,  thank  you  !  "  Miss  Howe  exclaimed.  Then 
she  murmured  again,  "  That's  just  what  I  mean." 

A  blankness  came  over  the  girl's  face  as  a  light 
cloud  will  cross  the  moon.  She  regarded  Hilda  from 
behind  it  with  penetrant  anxiety.  "  Did  you  really 
enjoy  that  hymn  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Indeed  I  did." 

"  Then,  dear  Miss  Howe,  I  think  you  cannot  be 
very  far  from  the  kingdom." 

"  I  ?  Oh,  I  have  my  part  in  a  kingdom."  Her 
voice  caressed  the  idea.  "And  the  curious  thing  is 
that  we  are  all  aristocrats  who  belong  to  it.  Not  the 
vulgar  kind,  you  understand — but  no,  you  dou't  un- 
derstand. You'll  have  to  take  my  word  for  it."  Miss 
Howe's  eyes  sought  a  red  hibiscus  flower  that  looked 
in  at  the  window  half  drowned  in  sunlight,  and  the 
smile  in  them  deepened.  The  flower  admitted  so 
naively  that  it  had  no  business  to  be  there. 

"  Is  it  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness  ?  " 
Laura  Filbert's  clear  glance  was  disturbed  by  a  ray  of 
curiosity,  but  the  inflexible  quality  of  her  tone  more 
than  counterbalanced  this. 

"There's  nothing  about  it  in  the  Bible,  if  that's 
what  you  mean.  And  yet  I  think  the  men  who  wrote 
*  The  time  of  the  singing  of  birds  has  come,'  and  '  I 
will  lift  mine  eyes  unto  the  hills,'  must  have  belonged 
to  it.'*    She  paused,  with  an  odd  look  of  discomfiture. 


■  : 


/' 


HILDA.  $ 

"  But  one  shouldn't  talk  about  things  like  that — it 
takes  the  bloom  off.  Don't  you  feel  that  way  about 
your  privileges  now  and  then  ?  Don't  they  look 
rather  dusty  and  battered  to  you  after  a  day's  ex- 
posure in  Bow  Bazaar  ?  " 

There  came  a  light  crunch  of  wheels  on  the  red 
kunker  drive  outside  and  a  switch  past  the  bunch  of 
sword  ferns  that  grew  beside  the  door.  The  muffled 
crescendo  of  steps  on  the  stair  and  the  sound  of  an 
inquiry  penetrated  from  beyond  the  porti6re,  and 
without  further  preliminary  Duff  Lindsay  came  into 
the  room. 

"  Do  I  interrupt  a  rehearsal  ?  *'  he  asked  ;  but  there 
was  nothing  in  the  way  he  walked  across  the  room  to 
Hilda  Howe  to  suggest  that  the  idea  abashed  him. 
For  her  part,  she  rose  and  made  one  short  step  to 
meet  him,  and  then  received  him,  as  it  were,  with  both 
hands  and  all  her  heart. 

"  How  ridiculous  you  are  !  "  she  cried.  "  Of  course 
not.  And  let  me  tell  you  it  is  very  nice  of  you  to 
come  this  very  first  day,  when  one  was  dying  to  be 
welcomed.  Miss  Filbert  came  too,  and  we  have  been 
talking  about  our  respective  walks  in  life.  Let  me 
introduce  you.  Miss  Filbert — Captain  Filbert,  of  the 
Salvation  Army — Mr.  Duff  Lindsay  of  Calcutta.  " 

She  watched  with  interest  the  gravity  with  which 
they  bowed,  and  differentiated  it ;  his  the  simple 
formality  of  his  class,  Laura's  a  repressed  hostility  to 
such  an  epitome  of  the  world  as  he  looked,  although 
any  Bond  street  tailor  would  have  impeached  his 
waistcoat,  and  one  shabby  glove  had  manifestly  never 
been  on.  Yet  Miss  Filbert's  first  words  seemed  to 
show  a  slight  unbending.    "  Won't  you  sit  there  ?  "  she 


HILDA. 


said,  indicating  the  sofa  corner  she  had  been  occupy- 
ing. "  You  get  the  glare  from  the  window  where  you 
are."  It  was  virtually  a  command,  delivered  with  a 
complete  air  of  dignity  and  authority  ;  and  Lindsay, 
in  some  confusion,  found  himself  obeying.  "Oh, 
thank  you,  thank  you,"  he  said.  "  One  doesn't  really 
mind  in  the  least.  Do  you — do  you  object  to  it? 
Shall  I  close  the  shutters  ?  " 

"  If  you  do,"  said  Miss  Howe  delightedly,  "  we 
shall  not  be  able  to  see." 

"  Neither  we  should,"  he  assented  ;  "  the  others  are 
closed  already.  Very  badly  built,  these  Calcutta 
houses,  aren't  they  ?  Have  you  been  long  in  India, 
Miss — Captain  Filbert  ?  " 

"  I  served  a  year  up-country  and  then  fell  ill  and 
had  to  go  home  on  furlough.  The  native  food  didn't 
suit  me.  I  am  stationed  in  Calcutta  now,  but  I  have 
only  just  come." 

"  Pleasant  time  of  the  year  to  arrive,"  Mr.  Lindsay 
remarked. 

"  Yes ;  but  we  are  not  particular  about  that.  We 
love  all  the  times  and  the  seasons,  since  every  one 
brings  its  appointed  opportunity.  Last  year,  in  Mu- 
gridabad,  there  were  more  souls  saved  in  June  than  in 
any  other  month." 

"  Really  ? "  asked  Mr.  Lindsay ;  but  he  was  not 
looking  at  her  with  those  speculations.  The  light 
had  come  back  upon  her  face. 

"  I  will  say  good-bye  now,"  said  Captain  Filbert. 
"  I  have  a  meeting  at  half-past  five.  Shall  we  have  a 
word  of  prayer  before  I  go  ?  " 

She  plainly  looked  for  immediate  acquiescence  ;  but 
Miss  Howe  said,  "  Another  time,  dear." 


HILDA.  f 

"  Oh,  why  not  ?  "  exclaimed  Duff  Lindsay.  Hilda 
put  the  semblance  of  a  rebuke  into  her  glance  at  him, 
and  said,  "  Certainly  not." 

"  Oh,"  Captain  Filbert  cried,  "  don't  think  you  can 
escape  that  way  !  I  will  pray  for  you  long  and  late 
to-night,  and  ask  my  lieutenant  to  do  so  too.  Don't 
harden  your  heart.  Miss  Howe— the  Lord  is  waiting 
to  be  compassionate." 

The  two  were  silent,  and  Laura  walked  toward  the 
door.  Just  where  the  sun  slanted  into  the  room  and 
made  leaf-patterns  on  the  floor,  she  turned  and  stood 
for  an  instant  in  the  full  tide  of  it ;  and  it  set  all  the 
loose  tendrils  of  her  pale  yellow  hair  in  a  little  flame, 
and  gave  the  folds  of  the  flesh-coloured  sari  that  fell 
over  her  shoulder  the  texture  of  draperies  so  often  de- 
picted as  celestial.  The  sun  sought  into  her  face,  re- 
vealing nothing  but  great  purity  of  line  and  a  clear 
pallor,  except  where  below  the  wide,  light-blue  eyes 
two  ethereal  shadows  brushed  themselves.  Under 
the  intentness  of  their  gaze  she  made  as  if  she  would 
pass  out  without  speaking;  and  the  tender  curves  of 
her  limbs,  as  she  wavered,  could  not  have  been  matched 
out  of  mediaeval  stained  glass.  But  her  courage,  or 
her  conviction,  came  back  to  her  at  the  door,  and  she 
raised  her  hand  and  pointed  at  Hilda. 

"  She's  got  a  soul  worth  saving." 

Then  the  portiere  fell  behind  her,  and  nothing  was 
said  in  the  room  until  the  pad  of  her  bare  feet  had 
ceased  upon  the  stair. 

"  She  came  out  in  the  Bengal  with  us,"  Hilda  told 
him — this  is  not  a  special  instance  of  it,  but  she  could 
always  gratify  Duff  Lindsay  in  advance — "  and  she 
was  desperately  seedy,  poor  girl.     I  looked  after  her 


8 


HILDA. 


a  little,  but  it  was  mistaken  kindness,  for  now  she's 
got  me  on  her  mind.  And  as  the  two  hundred  and 
eighty  million  benighted  souls  of  India  are  her  con- 
tinual concern,  I  seem  a  superfluity.  To  think  of  be- 
ing the  two  hundred  and  eighty-first  millionth  oppresses 
one. 

Lindsay  listened  with  a  look  of  accustomed  happi- 
ness. 

"You  weren't  at  that  end  of  the  ship!"  he  de- 
manded. 

"  Of  course  I  was — we  all  were.  And  some  of  us, 
little  Miss  Stace,  for  instance — thankful  enough  at  the 
prospect  ot  cold  meat  and  sardines  for  tea  every  night 
for  a  whole  month.  And  after  Suez  ices  for  dinner  on 
Sundays.     It  was  luxury." 

Lindsay  was  pulling  an  aggrieved  moustache.  "  I 
don't  call  it  fair  or  friendly,"  he  said,  "  when  you  know 
how  easily  it  could  have  been  arranged.  Your  own 
sense  of  the  fitness  of  things  should  have  told  you  that 
the  second-class  saloon  was  no  place  for  you.  For 
you  ! 

Plainly  she  did  not  intend  to  argue  the  point.  She 
poised  her  chin  in  her  hand  and  looked  away  over  his 
head,  and  he  could  not  help  seeing,  as  he  had  seen  be- 
fore, that  her  eyes  were  beautiful.  But  this  had  been 
so  long  acknowledged  between  them  that  she  could 
hardly  have  been  conscious  that  she  was  insisting  on 
it  afresh.  Then,  by  the  time  he  might  have  thought 
her  launched  upon  a  different  m-^^ditation,  her  mind 
swept  back  to  his  protest,  like  a  whimsical  bird. 

"  I  didn't  want  to  extract  anything  from  the  mer- 
cantile community  of  Calcutta  in  advance,"  she  said. 
"  It  would   be  most   unbusinesslike.     Stanhope    has 


■ 


■J 


^  A 


HILDA. 


been  equal  to  bringing  us  out ;  but  I  quite  see  myself, 
as  leading  lady,  taking  round  the  hat  before  the  end  of 
the  season.     Then  I  think,"  she  said  with  defiance 
"  that  I  shall  avoid  you."  ' 

"And  pray  why?" 

"Because  you  would  put  too  much  in.  According 
to  your  last  letters  you  are  getting  beastly  rich.  You 
would  take  all  the  tragedy  rut  of  the  situation,  and  my 
experience  would  vanish  in  your  cheque." 

"  I  don't  know  why  my  feelings  should  always  be 
cuffed  out  of  the  way  of  your  experiences,"  Lindsay 
said.  She  retorted,  "Oh,  yes,  you  do ;  "  and  they  re- 
garded  each  other  through  an  instant's  silence  with 
visible  good  fellowship. 

"A  reasonably  strong  company  this  time^"  Lind- 
say asked. 

"Thank  you.  'Company'  is  gratifying.  For  a 
month  we  have  been  a  'troupe  '-in  the  first-class  end. 
Fairish.  Bad  to  middling.  Fifteen  of  us.  and  when 
we  are  not  doing  Hamlet  and  Ophelia  we  can  please 
with  the  latest  thing  in  rainbow  chiffon  done  on 
mirrors  with  a  thousand  candle-power.  Bradley  and  I 
will  have  to  do  most  of  the  serious  work.  But  I  have 
improved-oh,  a  lot.  You  wouldn't  know  my  Lady 
Whippleton."  ^        ^ 

It  was  a  fervid  announcement,  but  it  carried  an  im- 
plication which  appeared  to  prevent  Lindsay's  kin- 
dling. 

I*  Then  Bradley  is  here  too  ?"  he  remarked.       * 

"  Oh,  yes,"  she  said  ;  and  an  instinct  sheathed  itself 

in   her    face.     "But  it   is  much    better  than    it   was, 

really.     He  is  hardly  ever  troublesome  now.     He  un- 

derstands.    And  he  teaches  me  a  great  deal  more  than 


10 


HILDA. 


I  can  tell  you.  You  know,"  she  asserted,  with  the 
effect  of  taking  an  independent  view,  "  as  an  artist  he 
has  my  unqualified  respect." 

"  You  have  a  fine  disregard  for  the  fact  that  artists 
are  men  when  they  are  not  women,"  Duff  said.  "  I 
don't  believe  their  behaviour  is  a  bit  more  affected  by 
their  artistry  than  it  would  be  by  a  knowledge  of  the 
higher  mathematics." 

She  turned  indignant  eyes  on  him.  "  Fancy  your 
saying  that !  Fancy  your  having  the  impertinence  to 
offer  me  so  absurd  a  sophistry !  At  what  Calcutta 
dinner-table  did  you  pick  it  up  ?  "  she  said  derisively. 
"Well,  it  shows  that  one  can't  trust  one's  best  friend 
loos*^  among  the  conventions !  " 

He  had  decided  that  it  would  be  a  trifle  edged  to 
say  that  such  matters  were  not  often  discussed  at  Cal- 
cutta dinner-tables,  when  she  added,  with  apparent 
inconsistei:cy  and  real  dejection,  "  It  is  a  hideous 
bore." 

Lindsay  saw  his  point  admitted,  and  even  in  the 
way  she  brushed  it  aside  he  felt  that  she  was  generous. 
Yet  something  in  him — perhaps  the  primitive  hunting 
instinct,  perhaps  a  more  sophisticated  Scotch  impulse 
to  explore  the  very  roots  of  every  matter,  tempted 
him  to  say,  "  He  gives  up  a  good  deal,  doesn't  he,  for 
his  present  gratification  ?  " 

"  He  gives  up  everything!  That  is  the  disgusting 
part  of  it.  Leander  Morris  offered  him — but  why 
should  I  tell  you?  It's  humiliating  enough  in  the 
very  back  of  one's  mind." 

"  He  is  a  clever  fellow,  no  doubt." 

"  Not  too  clever  to  act  with  me  !  Oh,  we  go  beau- 
tifully— we  melt,  we  run  together.     He  has  given  me 


HILDA. 


II 


some  essential  things,  and  now  I  can  give  them  back 
to  him.  I  begin  to  think  that  is  what  keeps  him  now. 
It  must  be  awfully  satisfying  to  generate  artistic  life 
in — in  anybody,  and  watch  it  grow." 

"Doubtless,"  said  Lindsay,  with  his  eyes  on  the 
carpet ;  and  her  eyebrows  twitched  together,  but  she 
said  nothing.  Although  she  knew  his  very  moderate 
power  of  analysis,  he  seemed  to  look,  with  his  eyes  on 
the  carpet,  straight  into  the  subject,  to  perceive  it 
with  a  cynical  clearness,  and  as  Hilda  watched  him  a 
little  hardness  came  atout  her  mouth.  "  Well,"  he 
said,  visibly  detaching  himself  from  the  matter,  "  it's 
a  satisfaction  to  have  you  back.  I  have  been  doing 
nothing,  literally,  since  you  went  away,  but  making 
money  and  playing  tennis.  Existence,  as  I  look  back 
upon  it,  is  connoted  by  a  varying  margin  of  profit  and 
a  vast  sward." 

She  looked  at  him  with  eyes  in  which  sy-^pathy 
stood  remotely,  considering  the  advisability  of  re- 
turning. "  It's  a  pity  you  can't  act,"  she  said  ;  "  then 
you  could  come  away  and  let  it  all  go." 

Lindsay  smiled  at  her  across  the  gulf  he  saw  fixed. 
"  How  simple  life  is  to  you  !  "  he  said.  "  But  any 
way,  I  couldn't  act." 

"  Oh,  no,  you  couldn't,  you  couldn't !  You  are  too 
intensely  absorbent,  you  are  too  rigidly  individual. 
The  flame  in  you  would  never  consent,  even  for  an  in- 
stant, to  be  the  flame  in  anybody  else — any  of  those 
people  who,  for  the  purpose  of  the  stage,  are  called 
imaginary.     Never ! " 

It  seemed  a  punishment,  but  all  Lindsay  said  was: 
"  I  wish  you  would  go  on.  You  can't  think  how  grat- 
ifying it  is — after  the  tennis." 


12 


HILDA. 


"  If  I  went  on  I  have  an  idea  that  I  might  be  dis- 
agreeable." 

"  Oh,  then  stop.  We  can't  quarrel  yet — IVe  hardly 
seen  you.  Are  you  comfortable  here  ?  Would  you 
like  some  French  novels  ?  " 

"  Yes,  thank  you.  Yes,  please  !  "  She  grew  before 
him  into  a  light  and  conventional  person,  apparently 
on  her  guard  against  freedom  of  speech.  He  moved 
a  blind  and  ineffectual  hand  about  to  find  the  spring 
she  had  detached  herself  from,  and  after  failing  for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  he  got  up  to  go. 

"  I  shan't  bother  you  again  before  Saturday,"  he 
said.  "  I  know  what  a  week  it  will  be  at  the  theatre. 
Remember  you  are  to  give  the  man  his  orders  about 
the  brougham.  I  can  get  on  perfectly  with  the  cart. 
Good-bye !     Calcutta  is  waiting  tor  you." 

"  Calcutta  is  never  impatient,"  said  Miss  Howe.  "  It 
is  waiting  with  yawns  and  much  whiskey  and  soda." 
She  gave  him  a  stately  inclination  with  her  hand,  and 
he  overcame  the  temptation  to  lay  his  own  on  his  heart 
in  a  burlesque  of  it.  At  the  door  he  remembered 
something,  and  turned.  He  stood  looking  back  pre- 
cisely where  Laura  Filbert  had  stood,  but  the  sun  was 
gone.  "  You  might  tell  me  more  about  your  friend  of 
the  altruistic  army,"  he  said. 

"You  saw,  you  heard,  you  know." 

*'  But " 

"  Oh,"  cried  she,  disregardingly,  "  you  can  discover 
her  for  yourself,  at  the  Army  Headquarters  in  Ben- 
tinck  street — you  man  !  " 

Lindsay  closed  the  door  behind  him  without  reply- 
ing, and  half-way  down  the  stairs  her  voice  appealed 
to  him  over  the  bannisters. 


HILDA. 


13 


"You  might  as  well  forget  that.  I  didn't  particu- 
larly mean  it." 

"  I  know  you  didn't/'  he  returned.  **  You  woman ! 
But  you  yourself — you're  not  going  to  play  with  your 
heavenly  visitant  ?  ' 

Hilda  leaned  upon  the  bannisters,  her  arms  dropping 
over  from  the  elbows.  "  I  suppose  I  may  look  at  her/' 
she  said  ;  and  her  smile  glowed  down  upon  him. 

"  Do  you  think  it  really  rewards  attention — the 
type,  I  mean  ?  " 

"  How  you  will  talk  of  types  !  Didn't  you  see  that 
she  was  unique  ?  You  may  come  back,  if  you  like,  for 
a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  we  will  discuss  her." 

Lindsay  looked  at  his  watch.  "  I  would  come  back 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  to  discuss  anything  or  noth- 
ing," he  replied,  "  but  there  isn't  time.  I  am  dining 
with  the  Archdeacon.     I  must  go  to  church." 

"  Why  not  be  original  and  dine  with  the  Archdeacon 
without  going  to  church  ?  Why  not  say  on  arrival : 
*  My  dear  Archdeacon,  your  sermon  and  your  mutton 
the  same  evening — cest  trop  !  I  cannot  so  impose 
upon  your  generosity.    I  have  come  for  the  mutton  !  *  " 

Thus  was  Captain  Laura  Filbert  superseded,  as 
doubtless  often  before,  by  an  orthodox  consideration. 
Duff  Lindsay  drove  away  in  his  cart ;  and  still,  for  an 
appreciable  number  of  seconds,  Miss  Howe  stood  lean- 
ing over  the  bannisters,  her  eyes  fixed  full  of  specula- 
tion on  the  place  where  he  had  stood.  She  was  think- 
ing of  a  scene — a  dinner  with  an  Archdeacon — and  of 
the  permanent  satisfaction  to  be  got  from  it ;  and  she 
renounced  almost  with  a  palpable  sigh  the  idea  of  the 
Archdeacon's  asking  her. 


^ 


CHAPTER  II. 

"  Oh,  her  gift ! "  said  Alicia  1.  ivingstone.  "  It  is  the 
lowest,  isn't  it-in  the  scale  of  human  endowment  ? 
Mimicry." 

Miss  Livingstone  handed  her  brother  his  tea  as  she 
spoke,  but  turned  her  eyes  and  her  delicate  chin  toward 
Duff  Lindsay  with  the  protest.  Lindsay's  cup  was  at 
his  hps,  and  his  eyebrows  went  up  over  it  as  if  they 
would  answer  before  his  voice  was  set  at  liberty. 

"  Mimicry  isn't  a  fair  word,"  he  said.     "  The  mimic 
doesn't  interpret.     He's  a  mere  thief  of  expression. 
You   can   always   see   him    behind   his   stolen    mask. 
The  actress  takes  a  different  rank.     This  one  does 
anyway."  /  ' 

*'  You're  mixing  her  up  with  the  apes  and  the  mon- 
keys," remarked  Surgeon-Major  Livingstone. 

"  Mere  imitators  !  "  cried  Mrs.  Barberry. 

Alicia  did  not  allow  the  argument  to  pursue  her. 
She  smiled  upon  their  energy,  and,  so  to  speak,  disap! 
peared.  It  was  one  of  her  little  ways,  and  since  it  left 
seeming  conquerors  on  her  track  nobody  quarrelled 
with  it. 

"  I've  met  them  in  London,"  she  said.  "  Oh,  I  re- 
member one  hot  little  North  Kensington  flat  full  of 
them,  and  their  cigarettes— and  they  were  always  dis- 
appointing. There  seemed  to  be,  somehow,  no  basis- 
nothing  to  go  upon." 


HILDA. 


IS 


mon- 


Ire- 

ullof 
s  dis- 
isis — 


She  looked  from  one  to  the  other  of  her  party  with 
a  graceful,  deprecating  movement  of  her  head,  a  head 
which  people  were  unanimous  in  calling  more  than 
merely  pretty  and  more  than  ordinarily  refined. 
That  was  the  cursory  verdict,  the  superficial  thing  to 
see  and  say ;  it  will  do  to  go  on  with.  From  the 
way  Lindsay  looked  at  her  as  she  spoke,  he  might 
have  been  suspected  of  other  discoveries,  possible 
only  to  the  somewhat  privileged  in  this  blind  world, 
where  intimacy  must  lend  a  lens  to  find  out  anything 
at  all. 

"  You  found  that  they  had  no  selves,"  he  said,  and 
the  manner  of  his  words  was  encouraging  and  provo- 
cative. His  proposition  was  obscured  to  him  for  the 
instant  by  his  desire  to  obtain  the  very  last  of  her 
comment,  and  it  might  be  seen  that  this  was  habitual 
with  him.     "  But  Miss  Hilda  Howe  has  one." 

"  Is  she  a  lady  ?  "  asked  Mrs.  Barberry. 

"  I  don't  know.  She's  an  individual.  I  prefer  to 
rest  my  claim  for  her  on  that." 

"Your  claim  to  what?"  trembled  upon  Miss  Liv- 
ingstone's lips,  but  she  closed  them  instead  •  and 
turned  her  head  again  to  listen  to  Mrs.  Barberry. 
The  turns  of  Alicia's  head  had  a  way  of  punctuating 
the  conversations  in  which  she  was  interested,  impart- 
ing elegance  and  relief. 

"  I  saw  her  in  A  Woman  of  Honour,  last  cold  weather," 
Mrs.  Barberry  said  ;  "  I  took  a  dinner-party  of  five 
girls  and  five  subalterns  from  the  Fort,  and  I  said, 
'  Never  again  !  *  Fortunately  the  girls  were  just  out, 
and  not  one  of  them  understood,  but  those  poor 
boys  didn't  know  where  to  look  !  And  no  more  did 
I.     So  disgustingly  real." 


' 


l\ 


l6  HILDA. 

Alicia's  eyes  veiled  themselves  to  rest  on  a  ring  on 
her  finger,  and  a  little  smile,  which  was  inconsistent 
with  the  veiling,  hovered  about  her  lips. 

"  I  was  in  England  last  year,"  she  said  ;  "  I — I  saw 
A  Woman  of  Honour  in  London.  What  could  possi- 
bly be  done  with  it  by  an  Australian  scratch  company 
in  a  Calcutta  theatre  !     Imagination  halts." 

"  Miss  Howe  did  something  with  it,"  observed  Mr. 
Lindsay.  "  That  and  one  or  two  other  things  carried 
one  through  last  cold  weather.  One  supported  even 
the  gaieties  of  Christmas  week  with  fortitude,  con- 
scious that  there  was  something  to  fall  back  upon.  I 
remember  I  went  to  the  State  ball,  and  cheerfully." 

"  That's  saying  a  good  deal,  isn't  it  ?  "  commented 
Dr.  Livingstone,  vaguely  aware  of  an  ironical  inten- 
tion.    "  By  Jove,  yes." 

"Hamilton  Bradley  is  good,  too,  isn't  he?"  Mrs. 
Barberry  said.  "  Such  a  magnificent  head.  I  adore 
him  in  Shakespeare." 

"  He  knows  the  conventions,  and  uses  them  with 
security,"  Lindsay  replied,  looking  at  Alicia ;  and  she, 
with  a  little  courageous  air,  demanded :  "  Is  the  story 
true?" 

"  The  story  of  their  relations  ?  I  suppose  there  are 
fifty.     One  of  them  is." 

Mrs.  Barberry  frowned  at  Lindsay  in  a  manner 
which  was  itself  a  reminiscence  of  amateur  theatricals. 
"Their  relations!  "  she  murmured  to  Dr.  Livingstone. 
"  What  awful  things  to  talk  about." 

"The  story  I  mean,"  Alicia  explained,  "is  to  the 
effect  that  Mr.  Bradley,  who  is  married,  but  unim- 
portantly, made  a  heavy  bet,  when  he  met  this  girl, 
that   he  would   subdue   her  absolutely   through   her 


HILDA.                                   17 

passion 

for  her  art — I  mean,   of    course,   her  afTec- 

tions 

" 

"  My  clear  girl,  v/e  know  what  you  mean,"  cried 
Mrs.  Barberry,  entering  a  protest,  as  it  were,  on  be- 
half of  the  gentlemen. 

**  And  precisely  the  reverse  happened." 

"  One  imagines  it  was  something  like  that,"  Lind- 
say said. 

*'  Oh,  did  she  know  about  the  bet  ?  "  cried  Mrs. 
Barberry. 

'*  That's  as  you  like  to  believe.  I  fancy  she  knew 
about  the  man,"  Lindsay  contributed  again. 

**  Tables  turned,  eh  ?  Dare  say  it  served  him  right," 
remarked  Dr.  Livingstone.  "  If  you  really  want  to 
come  to  the  laboratory,  Mrs.  Barberry,  we  ought  to  be 
off." 

"  He  is  going  to  show  me  a  bacillus,"  Mrs.  Barberry 
announced  with  enthusiasm.  "  Plague,  or  cholera,  or 
something  really  bad.  He  caught  it  two  days  ago, 
and  put  it  in  jelly  for  me — wasn't  it  dear  of  him? 
Good-bye,  you  nice  thing," — Mrs.  Barberry  addressed 
Alicia — "  Good-bye,  Mr.  Lindsay.  Fancy  a  live  bacil- 
lus from  Hong  Kong!  I  should  like  it  better  if  it 
came  from  fascinating  Japan,  but  still — good-bye." 

With  the  lady's  departure  an  air  of  wontedness 
seemed  to  repossess  the  room  and  the  two  people  who 
were  left.  Things  fell  into  their  places,  one  could 
observe  relative  beauty,  on  the  walls  and  on  the  floor, 
in  Alicia's  hair  and  in  her  skirt.  Little  meanings 
attached  themselves — to  oval  portraits  of  ladies,  evi- 
dently ancestral,  whose  muslin  sleeves  were  tied  with 
blue  ribbon,  to  Byzantine-looking  Persian  paintings, 
to  odd  brass  bowls  and  faint-coloured   embroideries. 


» 


t 


|8  HILDA. 

The  air  became  full  of  agreeable  exhalations,  traceable 
to  inanimate  objects,  or  to  a  rose  in  a  vase  of  common 
country  glass ;  and  if  one  turned  to  Alicia,  one  could 
almost  observe  the  process  by  which  they  were  ab- 
sorbed in  her  and  given  forth  again  with  a  delicacy 
more  vague.  Lindsay  sometimes  thought  of  the  bee 
and  flowers  and  honey,  but  always  abandoned  the 
simile  as  a  trifle  gross  and  material.  Certainly,  as  she 
sat  there  in  her  grace  and  slenderness  and  pale  clear 
tints — there  was  an  effect  of  early  morning  about  her 
that  made  the  full  tide  of  other  women's  sunlight 
vulgar — anyone  would  have  been  fastidious  in  the 
choice  of  a  figure  to  present  her  in.  With  suspicion 
of  haughtiness  she  was  drawn  for  the  traditional 
marchioness  ;  but  she  lifted  her  eyes  and  you  saw  that 
she  appealed  instead.  There  was  an  art  in  the  doing 
of  her  hair,  a  dainty  elaboration  that  spoke  of  the 
most  approved  conventions  beneath,  yet  it  was  im- 
possible to  mistake  the  freedom  of  spirit  that  lay  in 
the  lines  of  her  blouse.  Even  her  gracefulness  ran 
now  and  then  into  a  downrightness  of  movement 
which  suggested  the  assertion  of  a  primitive  sincerity 
in  a  personal  world  of  many  effects.  Into  her  making 
of  tea,  for  example,  she  put  nothing  more  sophisticated 
than  sugar,  and  she  ordered  more  bread  and  butter  in 
the  worst  possible  Hindustani  without  a  thought 
except  that  the  bread  and  butter  should  be  brought. 
Lindsay  liked  to  think  that  with  him  she  was  particu- 
larly simple  and  direct,  that  he  was  of  those  who  freed 
her  from  the  pretty  consciousness,  the  elegant  restraint 
that  other  people  fixed  upon  her.  It  must  be  admitted 
that  this  conviction  had  reason  in  establishing  itself, 
and  it  is  perhaps  not  surprising  that,  in  the  security  of 


HILDA. 


X9 


it,  he  failed  to  notice  occasions  when  it  would  not  have 
held,  of  which  this  was  plainly  one.  Alicia  reflected, 
with  her  cheek  against  the  Afghan  wolf-skins  on  the 
back  of  the  chair.  It  was  characteristic  of  her  eyes 
that  one  could  usually  see  things  being  turned  over  in 
them.  She  would  sometimes  keep  people  waiting 
while  she  thought.  She  thought  perceptibly  about 
Hilda  Howe,  slanting  her  absent  gaze  between  shelter- 
ing eyelids  to  the  floor.  Presently  she  re-arranged 
the  rose  in  its  green  glass  vase  and  said :  "  Then  it's 
impossible  not  to  be  interested." 

"  I  thought  you  would  find  it  so." 
Alicia  was  further  occupied  in  bestowing  small 
fragments  of  cress  sandwich  upon  a  terrier.  "  Fancy 
your  being  so  sure,"  she  said,  "  that  you  could  present 
her  entertainingly ! "  She  looked  past  him  toward 
the  soft  light  that  came  in  at  the  draped  window,  and 
he  was  not  aware  that  her  regard  held  him  fast  by  the 
way. 

"  Anyone  could,"  he  said  cheerfully ;  "  she  presents 
herself.  One  is  only  the  humblest  possible  medium. 
And  the  most  passive." 

Alicia's  eyes  still  rested  upon  the  light  from  the 
window.  It  silhouetted  a  rare  fern  from  Assam,  it 
certainly  rewarded  them. 

"  I  like  to  hear  you  talk  about  her.  Tell  me  some 
more." 

"  Haven't  I  exhausted  metaphor  in  describing 
her?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Miss  Livingstone,  with  conviction ; 
"  but  I'm  not  a  bit  satisfied.  A  few  simple  facts 
sometimes — sometimes  are  better.  Wasn't  it  a  little 
difficult  to  make  her  acquaintance  ?  " 


JO 


HILDA. 


"  Not  in  the  very  least.  I  saw  her  in  A  Woman  of 
Honour  and  was  charmed.  Charmed  in  a  new  way. 
Nexi  day  I  discovered  her  address — it's  obscure — and 
sent  up  my  card  for  permission  to  tell  her  so.  I  ex- 
plained to  her  that  one  would  have  hesitated  at  home, 
but  here  one  was  protected  by  dustur,*  And  she  re- 
ceived me  warmly.  She  gave  me  to  understand  that 
she  was  not  overwhelmed  with  tribute  of  that  kind 
from  Calcutta.  The  truthful  ring  of  it  was  pathetic, 
poor  dear." 

"  That  was  in — " 

"  In  February." 

"  In  February  we  were  at  Nice,"  Alicia  said,  mus- 
ingly. Then  she  took  up  her  divining-rod  again. 
"  One  can  imagine  that  she  was  grateful.  People  of 
that  kind — how  snobbish  I  sound,  but  you  know  what 
I  mean — are  rather  stranded  in  Calcutta,  aren't  they  ? 
They  haven't  any  world  here ;  "  and  with  the  quick 
glance  which  deprecated  her  timid  clevernesses,  she 
added,  "  The  arts  conspire  to  be  absent." 

"Ah,  don't  misunderstand.  If  there  was  any  grati- 
tude it  was  all  mine.  But  we  met  as  kindred,  if  I  may 
vaunt  myself  so  much.  A  mere  theory  of  life  will  go 
a  long  way,  you  know,  toward  establishing  a  claim  of 
that  sort.  And,  at  all  events,  she  is  good  enough  to 
treat  me  as  if  she  admitted  it." 

"What  is  her  theory  of  life?"  Alicia  demanded, 
quickly.     "  I  should  be  glad  of  a  new  one." 

Lindsay's  communicativeness  seemed  to  contract  a 
little,  as  at  the  touch  of  a  finger  light  but  cold. 

"  I  don't  think  she  has  ever  told  me,"  he  said. 
"  No,  I  am  sure  she  has  not."     His  reflection  was, 

*  Custom. 


'm: 


HILDA. 


21 


"  It  is  her  garment — and  how  could  it  fit  another 
woman?  ** 

"  But  you  have  divined  it — she  has  let  you  do  that ! 
You  can  give  me  your  impression." 

He  recognised  her  bright  courage  in  venturing  upon 
impalpabilities,  but  not  without  a  shade  of  embarrass- 
ment. 

*•  Perhaps.  But  having  perceived  to  pass  on — it 
doesn't  follow  that  one  can.  I  don't  seem  able  to  lay 
my  hand  upon  the  signs  and  symbols." 

The  faintest  look  of  disappointment,  the  slightest 
cloud  of  submission,  appeared  upon  Miss  Livingstone's 
face. 

"  Oh,  I  know !  **  she  said.  "  You  are  making  me 
feel  dreadfully  out  of  it,  but  I  know.  It  surrounds 
her  like  a  kind  of  atmosphere,  an  intellectual  atmos- 
phere. Though  I  confess  that  is  the  part  I  don't  un- 
derstand in  connection  with  an  actress." 

There  was  a  sudden  indifference  in  this  last  sentence. 
Alicia  lay  back  upon  her  wolf-skins  like  a  long-,  temmed 
flower  cast  down  among  them,  and  looked  away  from 
the  subject  at  the  teacups.  Duff  picked  up  his  hat. 
He  had  the  subtlest  intimations  with  women. 

"  It's  an  intoxicating  atmosphere,"  he  said.  "  My 
continual  wonder  is  that  I'm  not  in  love  with  her.  A 
fellow  in  a  novel,  now,  in  my  situation,  would  be  em- 
broiled with  half  his  female  relations  by  this  time,  and 
taking  his  third  refusal  with  a  haggard  eye." 

Alicia  still  contemplated  the  teacups,  but  with  in- 
tentness.  She  lifted  her  head  to  look  at  them ;  one 
might  have  imagined  a  beauty  suddenly  revealed. 

"  Why  aren't  you  ?  "  she  said.     "  I  wonder,  too.** 

"  I  should  like  it  enormously,"  he  laughed.     "  I've 


V 


22 


HILDA. 


lam  awake  a  n^hts  to'ing  to  find  out  why  it  isn't  so. 
Perhaps  you  11  be  able  .o  tell  me.  I  think  it  must  be 
because  she  s  such  a  confoundedly  good  fellow." 

Ahca  turned  her  face  toward  him  sweetly,  and  the 
soft  grey  fur  made  a  shadow  on  the  whiteness  of  her 
throat.  Her  buffeting  was  over;  she  was  full  of  an 
impulse  to  stand  again  in  the  sun. 

"  Oh,  you  mustn't  depend  on  me,"  she  said.  "  But 
whyare  you  going?  Don't  go.  Stay  and  have  an- 
Other  cup  of  tea. 


•Mb 


CHAPTER  III. 


The  fact  that  Stephen  Arnold  and  Duff  Lindsay 
had  spent  the  same  terms  at  New  College,  and  now 
found  themselves  again  together  in  the  social  poverty 
of  the  Indian  capital,  would  not  necessarily  explain 
their  walking  in  company  through  the  early  dusk  of  a 
December  evening  in  Bentinck  street.  It  seems  de- 
sirable to  supply  a  reason  why  any  one  should  be 
walking  there,  to  begin  with,  any  one,  at  all  events, 
not  a  Chinaman  or  a  coolie,  a  dealer  in  second-hand 
furniture  or  an  able-bodied  seaman  luxuriously  fin- 
gering wages  in  both  trouser  pockets,  and  describing 
an  erratic  line  of  doubtful  temper  toward  the  nearest 
glass  of  country  spirits.  Or,  to  be  quite  comprehen- 
sive, a  draggled  person  with  a  Bulgarian,  a  Levantine 
or  a  Japanese  smile,  who  no  longer  possessed  a  carriage, 
to  whom  the  able-bodied  seamen  represented  the 
whole  port.  The  cramped,  twisting  thoroughfare  was 
full  of  people  like  this ;  they  overflowed  from  the 
single  narrow  border  of  pavement  to  the  left  and 
walked  indifferently  upon  the  road  among  the  straw- 
scatterings  and  the  dung-droppings ;  and  when  the 
tramcar  swept  through  and  past  with  prodigious 
whistlings  and  ringings,  they  swerved  as  little  as  possi- 
ble aside,  for  three  parts  of  the  tide  of  them  were 
neither  white  nor  black,  but  many  shades  of  brown, 
written  down  in  the  census  as  "  of  mixed  blood  "  and 


H 


HILDA. 


wearing  still,  through  the  degenerating  centuries,  an 
eyebrow,  a  nostril  of  the  first  Englishmen  who  came  to 
conjugal  ties  of  Hindustan.  The  place  sent  up  to  the 
stars  a  vast  noise  of  argument  and  anger  and  laughter, 
of  the  rattling  of  hoofs  and  wheels  ;  but  the  babel  was 
ordered  in  its  exaggeration,  the  red  turban  of  a  police- 
man here  and  there  denoted  little  more  than  a  unit  in 
the  crowd.  There  were  gas-lamps,  and  they  sent  a 
ripple  of  light  like  a  sword-thrust  along  the  gutter  be- 
side the  banquette,  where  a  pariah  dog  nosed  a  dead 
rat  and  was  silhouetted.  They  picked  out,  too,  the 
occasional  pair  of  Corinthian  columns,  built  into  the 
squalid  stucco  sheer  with  the  road  that  made  history 
for  Bentinck  street,  and  explained  that  whatever  might 
be  the  present  colour  of  the  little  squat  houses  and  the 
tall  lean  ones  that  loafed  together  into  the  fog  round 
the  first  bend,  they  were  once  agreeably  pink  and  yel- 
low, with  the  magenta  cornice,  the  blue  capital,  that 
fancy  dictated.  There,  where  the  way  narrowed  with 
an  out-jutting  balcony  high  up,  and  the  fog  thickened 
and  the  lights  grew  vague,  the  multitude  of  heads 
passed  into  the  blur  beyond  with  an  effect  of  mystery, 
pictorial,  remote ;  but  where  Arnold  and  Lindsay 
walked  the  squalor  was  warm,  human,  practical.  A 
torch  flamed  this  way  and  that  stuck  in  the  wall  over 
the  head  of  a  squatting  bundle  and  his  tray  of  three- 
cornered  leaf- parcels  of  betel,  and  an  oiled  rag  in  a 
tin  pot  sent  up  an  unsteady  little  flame,  blue  and  yel- 
low, beside  a  sweetmeat  seller's  basket,  and  showed 
his  heap  of  cakes  that  they  were  well-browned  and 
full  of  butter.  From  the  "  Cape  of  Good  Cheer," 
where  many  bottles  glistened  in  rows  inside,  came  a 
braying  upon  the  conch,  and  a  flame  of  burnt  brandy 


HILDA. 


as 


I 


danced  along  the  bar  to  the  honour  and  propitiation  of 
Lakshmi,  that  the  able-bodied  seaman  might  be  thirsty 
when  he  came,  for  the  "  Cape  of  Good  Cheer  "  did  not 
owe  its  prosperity,  as  its  name  might  suggest,  to  any 
Providence  of  Christian  theology.  But  most  of  the 
brightness  abode  in  the  Chinamen's  shoe-shops,  where 
many  lamps  shone  on  the  hammering  and  the  stitch- 
ing. There  were  endless  shoe-shops,  and  they  all  be- 
longed  to  Powson  or  Singson  or  Samson,  while  one 
signboard  bore  the  broad  impertinence,  "  Macpherson." 
The  proprietors  stood  in  the  door,  the  smell  came  out 
in  the  street — that  smell  of  Chinese  personality  steeped 
in  fried  oil  and  fresh  leather  that  out-fans  even  the 
south  wind  in  Bentinck  street.  They  were  responsible 
but  not  anxious,  the  proprietors ;  they  buried  their  fat 
hands  in  their  wide  sleeves  and  looked  up  and  down, 
stolid  and  smiling.  They  stood  in  their  alien  petti- 
coat trousers  for  the  commercial  stability  of  the  locality, 
and  the  rows  of  patent-leather  slippers  that  glistened 
behind  them  testified  to  it  further.  Everything  else 
shifted  and  drifted,  with  a  perpetual  change  of  com- 
plexion, a  perpetual  worsening  of  clothes.  Only  Pow- 
son bore  a  permanent  yoke  of  prosperity.  It  lay 
round  his  thick  brown  neck  with  the  low  clean  line  of 
his  blue  cotton  smock,  and  he  carried  it  without  offen- 
sive consciousness,  looking  up  and  down  by  no  means 
in  search  of  customers,  rather  in  the  exercise  of  the 
opaque,  inscrutable  philosophy  tied  up  in  his  queue. 

Lindsay  liked  Bentinck  street  as  an  occasional  re- 
lapse from  the  scenic  standards  of  pillared  and  veran- 
dahed  Calcutta,  and  made  personal  business  with  his 
Chinaman  for  the  sake  of  the  racial  impression  thrown 
into  the  transaction.    Arnold,  in  his  cassock,  waited 


26 


HILDA. 


in  the  doorway  with  his  arms  crossed  behind  him,  and 
his  thin  face  thrust  as  far  as  it  would  go  into  the  air 
outside.  It  is  possible  that  some  intelligence  might 
have  seen  in  this  priest  a  caricature  of  his  profes- 
sion, a  figure  to  be  copied  for  the  curate  of  bur- 
lesque, so  accurately  did  he  reproduce  the  common 
signs  of  the  ascetic  school.  His  face  would  have  been 
womanish  in  its  plainness  but  for  the  gravity  that  had 
grown  upon  it,  only  occasionally  dispersed  by  a  smile 
of  scholarliness  and  sweetness  which  had  the  effect  of 
being  permitted,  conceded.  He  had  the  long  thin 
nose  which  looked  as  if,  for  preference,  it  would  be 
for  ever  thrust  among  the  pages  of  the  Fathers  ;  and 
anyone  might  observe  the  width  of  his  mouth  without 
perhaps  detecting  the  patience  and  decision  of  the 
upper  lip.  The  indignity  of  spectacles  he  did  not  yet 
wear,  but  it  hovered  over  him  ;  it  was  indispensable 
to  his  personality  in  the  long  run.  In  figure  he  was 
indifferently  tall  and  thin  and  stooping,  made  to  pass 
unobservedly  along  a  pavement,  or  with  the  directness 
of  humble  but  important  business  among  crowds.  At 
Oxford  he  had  interested  some  of  his  friends  and 
worried  others  by  wistful  inclinations  toward  the 
shelter  of  that  Mother  Church  which  bids  her  children 
be  at  rest  and  leave  to  her  the  responsibility.  Lind- 
say, with  his  robust  sense  of  a  right  to  exist  on  the 
old  unmuddled  fighting  terms,  to  be  a  sane  and  decent 
animal,  under  civilised  moral  governance  a  miserable 
sinner,  was  among  those  who  observed  his  waverings 
without  prejudice,  or  anything  but  an  affectionate 
solicitude  that  whichever  way  Arnold  went  he  should 
find  the  satisfactions  he  sought.  The  conviction  that 
settled    the   matter  was   accidental,  the   work   of    a 


i 


HILDA. 


27 


moment,  a  free  instinct  and  a  thing  made  with  hands 
— the  dead  Shelley  where  the  sea  threw  him  and  the 
sculptor  fixed  him,  under  his  memorial  dome  in  the 
gardens  of  University  College.  Here  one  leafy  after- 
noon Arnold  came  so  near  praying  that  he  raised  his 
head  in  some  confusion  at  the  thought  of  the  profane 
handicraftsman  who  might  claim  the  vague  tribute  of 
his  spirit.  Then  fell  the  flash  by  which  he  saw,  deeply 
concealed  in  his  bosom  and  disguised  with  a  host  of 
spiritual  wrappings,  what  he  uncompromisingl}'  identi- 
fied as  the  artistic  bias,  the  aesthetic  poinc  of  view. 
The  discovery  worked  upon  him  so  that  he  spent  three 
days  without  consummated  prayer  at  all,  occupied 
in  the  effort  to  find  out  whether  he  could  yet  indeed 
worship  in  purity  of  spirit,  or  how  far  the  paralysis  of 
the  ideal  of  mere  beauty  had  crept  upon  his  devotions. 
In  the  end  he  cast  the  artistic  bias,  the  aesthetic  point 
of  view,  as  far  from  him  as  his  will  would  carry,  and 
walked  away  in  another  direction  from  which,  if  he 
turned  his  head,  he  could  see  the  Church  of  Rome 
sitting  with  her  graven  temptations  gathered  up  in  her 
skirts,  looking  mournfully  after  him.  He  had  been  a 
priest  of  the  Clarke  Mission  to  Calcutta,  a  "Clarke 
Brother,"  six  years  when  he  stood  in  the  door  of 
Ahsing's  little  shop  in  Bentinck  street  while  Lindsay 
explained  to  Ahsing  his  objection  to  patent-leather 
toe  caps;  six  years  which  had  not  worn  or  chilled  him, 
because,  as  he  would  have  cheerfully  admitted,  he  had 
recognised  the  facts  and  lowered  his  personal  hopes  of 
achievement — lowered  them  with  a  heroism  which 
took  account  of  himself  as  no  more  than  a  spiritual 
molecule  rightly  inspired  and  moving  to  the  great 
future,  already  shining  behind  coming  aeons,  of  the 


28 


HILDA. 


* 

I 


universal  Kingdom.  Indeed,  his  humility  was  scien- 
tific ;  he  made  his  deductions  from  the  granular  nature 
of  all  change,  moral  and  material.  He  never  talked  or 
thought  of  the  Aryan  souls  that  were  to  shine  with 
peculiar  oriental  brightness  as  stars  in  the  crown  of 
his  reward  ;  he  saw  rather  the  ego  and  the  energy  of 
him  merged  in  a  wave  of  blessed  tendency  in  this 
world,  thankful  if,  in  that  which  is  to  come,  it  was 
counted  worthy  to  survive  at  all.  It  should  be  under- 
stood that  Arnold  did  not  hope  to  attain  the  simplicity 
of  this  by  means  equally  simple.  He  held  vastly,  on 
the  contrary,  to  fast  days  and  flagellations,  to  the 
ministry  of  symbols,  the  use  of  rigours.  The  spiritual 
consummation  which  the  eye  of  faith  enabled  him  to 
anticipate  upon  the  horizon  of  Bengal  should  be  has- 
tened, however  imperceptibly,  by  all  that  he  could  do 
to  purify  and  intensify  his  infinitesimal  share  of  the 
force  that  was  to  bring  it  about.  Meanwhile  he  made 
friends  with  the  fathers  of  Bengali  schoolboys,  who 
appreciated  his  manners,  and  sent  him  with  urbanity 
flat  baskets  of  mangoes  and  nuts  and  oranges,  pome- 
granates from  Persia,  and  little  round  boxes  of  white 
grapes  in  sawdust  from  Kabul.  He  seldom  dwelt 
upon  the  converts  that  already  testified  to  the  success 
of  the  mission  ;  it  might  be  gathered  that  he  had  ideas 
about  premature  fruition. 

As  they  stepped  out  together  into  the  street,  Lind- 
say thrust  his  hand  within  Arnold's  elbow.  It  was  an 
impulse,  and  the  analysis  of  it  would  show  elements 
like  self-reproach,  and  a  sense  of  value  continually  re- 
newed, and  a  vain  desire  for  an  absolutely  common 
ground.  The  physical  nearness,  the  touch,  was  some- 
thing, and  each  felt  it  in  the  remoteness  of  his  other 


f 


I 


HILDA. 


29 


world  with  satisfaction.  There  was  absurdly  little  in 
what  they  had  to  say  to  each  other ;  they  talked  of  the 
Viceroy's  attack  of  measles  and  the  sanitary  improve- 
ments in  the  cloth-dealers*  quarter.  Their  bond  was 
hardly  more  than  a  mutual  decency  of  nature,  niceness 
of  sentiment,  clearness  of  eye.  Such  as  it  was,  it  was 
strong  enough  to  make  both  men  wish  it  were  stronger, 
a  desire  which  was  a  vague  impatience  on  Lindsay's 
part  with  a  concentration  of  hostility  to  Arnold's  sou- 
tane. It  made  its  universal  way  for  them,  however, 
this  garment.  Where  the  crowd  was  thickest  people 
jostled  and  pressed  with  one  foot  in  the  gutter  for  the 
convenience  of  the  padre-sahib.  He,  with  his  eyes  cast 
down,  took  the  tribute  with  humility,  as  meet,  in  a  way 
that  made  Lindsay  blaspheme  inwardly  at  the  persist- 
ence of  ecclesiastical  tradition. 

Suddenly,  as  they  passed,  the  irrelevant  violence  of 
tongues,  the  broken,  half-comprehensible  tumult,  was 
smitten  and  divided  by  a  wave  of  rhythmic  sound.  It 
pushed  aside  the  cries  of  the  sweetmeat  sellers,  and 
mounted  above  the  cracked  bell  that  proclaimed  the 
continual  auction  of  Krist,  Dass  and  Friend,  dealers  in 
the  second-hand.  In  its  vivid  familiarity  it  seemed  to 
make  straight  for  the  two  Englishmen,  to  surround  and 
take  possession  of  them,  and  they  paused.  The  source 
of  it  was  plain — an  open  door  under  a  vast  white  sign- 
board dingily  lettered  "  The  Salvation  Army."  It 
loomed  through  the  smoke  and  the  street  lights  like  a 
discovery. 

"  Our  peripatetic  friends,"  said  Arnold,  with  his  rare 

smile ;  and,  as  if  the  music  seized  and  held  them,  they 

stood  listening. 

•'  I've  got  a  Saviour  that's  mighty  to  keep 
Ail  day  on  Sunday,  and  six  days  a  week  ! 


30 


HILDA. 


*  ' 


If 


I've  got  a  Saviour  that's  mighty  to  keep 
Fifty-two  weeks  in  the  year." 

It  was  immensely  vigourous ;  the  men  looked  at  each 
other  with  fresh  animation.  Responding  to  the  mere 
physical  appeal  of  it,  they  picked  their  steps  across  the 
street  to  the  door,  and  there  hesitated,  revolted  in 
different  ways.  Perhaps  I  have  forgotten  to  say  that 
Lindsay  came  to  Calcutta  out  of  an  Aberdeenshire 
manse,  and  had  a  mother  before  whose  name  people 
wrote  "The  Hon."  Besides,  the  singing  had  stopped, 
and  casual  observation  from  the  street  was  checked  by 
a  screen. 

"  I  have  wondered  sometimes  what  their  methods 
really  are,"  said  Arnold. 

Their  methods  were  just  on  the  other  side  of  the 
screen.  A  bullet-headed  youth,  in  a  red  coat  with 
gold  letters  on  the  shoulder,  fingering  a  forage-cap, 
slunk  out  round  the  end  of  this  impediment,  passing 
the  two  men  beside  the  door,  and  a  light,  clear  voice 
seemed  to  call  after  him — 

"  Ah !  don't  go  away  ! " 

Lindsay  was  visited  by  a  flash  of  memory  and  a 
whimsical  speculation  whether  now,  at  the  week's  end, 
the  soul  of  Hilda  Howe  was  still  pursuing  the  broad 
road  to  perdition.  The  desire  to  enter  sprang  up  in 
him ;  he  was  reminded  of  a  vista  of  some  interest 
which  had  recently  revealed  itself  by  an  accident,  and 
which  he  had  not  explored.  It  had  almost  passed  out 
of  his  memory  ;  he  grasped  at  it  again  with  something 
like  excitement,  and  fell  adroitly  upon  the  half-inclina- 
tion in  Arnold's  voice. 

"  I  suppose  I  can't  expect  you  to  go  in  ?  "  he  said. 
Precisely    why  not?"   Stephen   retorted.      "My 


« 


i!  t 


HILDA. 


31 


a 

^1 

id, 

ad 

;1 

in 

est 

,/"■•■' 

nd 

mt 

1 

ng 

1 

la- 

\ 

id. 

1 

1 

ly 

dear  fellow,  we  make  broad  our  sympathies,  not  our 
phylacteries." 

At  any  other  time  Lindsay  would  have  reflected 
how  characteristic  was  the  gentle  neatness  of  that, 
and  might  have  resented  with  amusement  the  pulpit 
tone  of  the  little  epigram.  But  this  moment  found 
him  only  aware  of  the  consent  in  it.  His  hand  on 
Arnold's  elbow  clinched  the  agreement ;  he  half 
pushed  the  priest  into  the  room,  where  they  dropped 
into  seats.  Stephen's  hand  went  to  his  breast  in- 
stinctively— for  the  words  in  the  air  were  holy  by 
association — and  stopped  there,  since  even  the  breadth 
of  his  sympathies  did  not  enable  him  to  cross  himself 
before  General  Booth.  Though  absent  in  body,  the 
room  was  dominated  by  General  Booth  ;  he  loomed 
so  large  and  cadaverous,  so  earnest  and  aquiline  and 
bushy,  from  a  frame  on  the  wall  at  the  end  of  it.  The 
texts  on  the  other  walls  seemed  emanations  from 
him  ;  and  the  man  in  the  short,  loose,  collarless  red 
coat,  with  "  Salvation  Army  "  in  crooked  black  letters 
on  it,  who  stood  talking  in  high,  rapid  tones  with  his 
hands  folded,  had  the  look  of  a  puppet  whose  strings 
were  pulled  by  the  personality  in  the  frame  above 
him.  It  was  only  by  degrees  that  they  observed  the 
other  objects  in  the  room — the  big  drum  on  the  floor 
in  the  empty  space  where  the  exhorters  stood,  the 
dozen  wooden  benches  and  the  possible  score  of 
people  sitting  on  them,  the  dull  kerosene  lamps  on 
the  walls,  lighting  up  the  curtness  of  the  texts. 
There  were  half-a-dozen  men  of  the  Duke's  Own 
packed  in  a  row  like  a  formation,  solid  on  their 
haunches ;  and  three  or  four  unshaven  and  loose- 
garmented,  from  crews  in  the  Hooghly,  who  leaned 


y, 


32 


HILDA. 


well  forward,  their  elbows  on  their  knees,  twirling 
battered  straw  hats,  with  a  pathetic  look  of  being  for 
the  instant  off  the  defensive.  One  was  a  Scandina- 
vian, another  a  Greek,  with  earrings.  There  was  a 
ship's  cook,  too,  a  full-blooded  negro,  very  respectable 
with  a  plaid  tie  and  a  silk  hat ;  and  beside,  two  East 
Indian  girls  of  different  shades,  tittering  at  the  Duke's 
Own  in  an  agony  of  propriety ;  a  Bengali  boy,  who 
spelled  out  the  English  on  the  cover  of  a  hymn-book  ; 
and  a  very  clean  Chinaman,  who  greatly  appreciated 
his  privilege,  since  it  included  a  seat,  a  lamp,  and  a 
noise,  though  his  perception  of  it  possibly  went  no 
further.  The  other  odds  and  ends  were  of  the  mixed 
country  blood,  like  the  girls,  dingy,  undecipherable. 
They  made  a  shadow  for  the  rest,  lying  along  the 
benches,  shifting  unnoticeably. 

Three  people,  two  of  them  women,  sat  in  the  open 
space  at  the  end  of  the  room  where  the  smoky  fog 
from  outside  thickened  and  hung  visibly  in  mid-air, 
and  there  was  the  empty  seat  of  the  man  who  was 
talking.  Laura  Filbert  was  one  of  the  women.  She 
might  have  been  flung  upon  her  chair;  her  head 
drooped  over  the  back,  buried  in  the  curve  of  one 
arm.  A  tambourine  hung  loosely  from  the  hand 
nearest  her  face ;  the  other  lay,  palm  outward  in  its 
abandonment,  among  the  folds  that  covered  her 
limbs.  The  folds  hung  from  her  waist,  and  the  short 
close  bodice  that  she  wore  above  them,  like  a  Bengali 
woman,  left  visible  the  narrow  gap  of  flesh  which 
nobody  notices  when  it  is  brown.  Her  head  covering 
had  slipped  and  clung  only  to  the  knot  of  hair  at  the 
nape  of  her  neck ;  she  lacked,  pathetically,  the  con- 
scious hand  to  draw  it  forward.    She  was   unaware 


HILDA. 


33 


re 


even  of  the  gaze  of  the  Duke's  Own,  though  it  had 
fixity  and  absorption. 

The  man  with  folded  hands  went  on  talking.  He 
seemed  to  have  .caught  as  a  text  the  refrain  of  the 
hymn  that  had  been  sung.  "Yes  indeed,"  he  said, 
"  I  can  tell  every  one  'ere  this  night,  h'every  one,  that 
the  Saviour  is  mighty  to  keep.  I've  got  it  out 
of  my  own  personal  experience,  I  *ave.  Jesus  don't 
only  look  after  you  on  a  Sunday  but  six  days  a  week, 
my  friends,  six  days  a  week.  Fix  your  eye  on  Him 
and  He'll  keep  His  eye  on  you — that's  all  your  part 
of  it.  I  don't  mean  to  say  I  don't  stumble  an*  fall 
into  sin.  There's  times  when  the  Devil  will  get  the 
upper  'and,  but  oh,  my  friends,  I  ask  you  each  an*  every 
one  of  you,  is  that  the  fault  of  Jesus?  No,  it  is  not 
'is  fault,  it  is  the  fault  of  the  person.  The  person  'as 
been  forgetting  Jesus,  forgetting  'is  Bible  an*  his 
prayers ;  what  can  you  expect  ?  And  now  I  ask  you, 
my  friends,  is  Jesus  a-keeping  you  ?  And  if  he  is  not, 
oh,  my  friends,  ain't  it  foolish  to  put  off  any  longer  ? 
'Ere  we  are  met  together  to-night ;  we  may  never  all 
meet  together  again.  You  and  I  may  never  *ear  each 
other  speaking  again  or  see  each  other  sitting  there. 
Thank  God,"  the  speaker  continued,  as  his  eye  rested 
on  Arnold  and  Lindsay,  "  the  vilest  sinner  may  be 
saved,  the  respectable  sinner  may  be  saved.  We've 
got  God's  word  for  that.  Now  just  a  little  word  of 
prayer  from  Ensign  Sand  'ere — she's  got  God's  ear, 
the  Ensign  *as,  and  she'll  plead  with  'im  for  all  uncon- 
verted souls  inside  these  four  walls  to-night." 

Laura  lifted  her  head  at  this  and  dropped  with  the 
other  exhorters  on  her  knees  on  the  floor.  As  she 
moved  she  bent   upon  the   audience  a  preoccupied 


34 


HILDA. 


gaze,  by  which  she  seemed  to  observe  numbers, 
chances,  from  a  point  remote  and  emotionally  involved. 
Lindsay's  impression  was  that  she  looked  at  him  as 
from  behind  a  glass  door.  Then  her  eyes  closed  as 
the  other  woman  began,  and  through  their  lids,  as  it 
were,  he  could  see  that  she  was  again  caught  up, 
though  her  body  remained  abased,  her  hands  inter- 
locked between  her  knees,  swaying  in  unison  with  the 
petition.  The  Ensign  was  a  little,  meagre,  freckled 
woman,  whose  wisps  of  colourless  hair  and  tight 
drawn-down  lips  suggested  that  in  the  secular  world 
she  would  have  been  bedraggled  and  a  nagger.  She 
gained  an  elevation,  it  was  plain,  from  the  Bengali 
dress ;  it  kept  her  away  from  the  temptation  of  cheap 
plush  and  dirty  cotton  lace;  and  her  business  gave 
her  a  complacency  which  was  doubtless  accepted  as 
sanctification  by  her  fellow-ofificers,  especially  by  her 
husband,  who  had  announced  her  influence  with  the 
Divine  Being,  and  who  was  himself  of  an  inferior  com- 
mission. She  prayed  in  a  complaining  way,  and  in  a 
strained  minor  key  that  assumed  a  spiritual  intimacy 
with  all  who  listened,  her  key  to  hearts.  She  told 
the  Lord  in  confidence  that  however  appearances 
might  be  against  it,  every  soul  before  him  was  really 
longing  to  be  gathered  within  His  Almighty  arms, 
and  when  she  said  this,  Laura  Filbert,  on  the  floor, 
threw  back  her  head  and  cried  **  Hallelujah  !  "  and 
DufY  started.  The  others  broke  in  upon  the  Ensign 
with  like  exclamations.  They  had  a  recurrent,  per- 
functory sound,  and  passed  unnoticed;  but  when 
Laura  again  cried  "  Praise  the  Lord  !  "  Lindsay  found 
himself  holding  in  check  a  hasty  impulse  to  leave  the 
premises.     Then  she  rose,  and  he  watched  with  the 


li 


HILDA. 


35 


Duke's  Own,  to  see  what  she  would  do   next.     The 
others  looked  at  her  too,  as  she  stood  surprisitit^ly  fair 
and  insistant  among  them,  Ensign  Sand  with  huinblc 
eyes  and  disapproving  lips.     As  she  began  to  speak 
the   silence  widened  for  her  words,  the   ship's  cook 
stopped  shufifling    his    feet.     **  Oh    come,"    she    said, 
"  Come  and  be  saved."     Her  voice  seemed  to  travel 
from  her  without  effort,  and  to  penetrate  every  corner 
and  every  consciousness.     There  was  a  sudden  dip  in 
it  like  the  fall  of  water,  that  thrilled  along  the  nerves. 
"  Who  am  I  that  ask  you  ?     A  poor  weak  woman,  ig- 
norant, unknown.     Never  mind.     It  is  not  my  voice, 
but  the  voice  in  your  heart  that  entreats  you,  *  Come 
and  be  saved  ! '     You  know  that  voice,  it    speaks  in 
the  watches  of  the  night ;  it  began  to  speak  when  you 
were  a  little,  little  child,  with  little  joys  and  sorrows, 
and  little  prayers  that  you  have  forgotten  now.     Oh, 
it  is  a  sweet  voice,  a  tender  voice  " — her  own    had 
dropped  to  the  cooing  of  doves — "  It  is  hard  to  know 
why  all  the  winds  do  not  carry  it,  and  all  the  leaves 
whisper  it !     Strange,  strange !     But  the  world  is  full 
of  the  clamour  of  its  own  foolishness,  and  the  Voice 
is  lost  in  it,  except  in  places  where  people  come  to 
pray,  as  here  to-night,  and  in   those  night  watches. 
You  hear  it  now  in  the  echo  from  my  lips,  '  Come  and 
be  saved.*     Why  must  I  beg  of  you  ?     Why  do  you 
not  come  hastening,    running?    Are  you   too   wise? 
But  when  did  the  wisdom  of  this  world  satisfy  you 
about  the  next?    Are  you  too  much  occupied?     But 
in  the  day  of  judgment  what  will  you  do  ?  " — 

"  When  you  come  to  Jordan's  flood, 
How  will  you  do  ?    How  will  you  do  ?  " 

It  was  the  voice  and  tambourine  of  Ensign  Sand, 


36  HILDA. 


f 


i 


quick  upon  her  opportunity.      Laura  gave   her    no  % 

glance  of  surprise — perhaps  she  was  disciplined  to  in- 
terruptions— but  caught  up  her  own  tambourine,  sing- 
ing, and  instantly  the  chorus  was  general,  the  big 
drum  thumping  out  the  measure,  all  the  tambourines 
shaking  together. 

"  You  who  now  contemn  your  God, 
How  will  you  do  ?    How  will  you  do  ?  " 

The  Duke's  Own  sang  lustily,  with  a  dogged  enjoy- 
ment that  made  little  of  the  words.  Some  of  them 
assumed  a  vacuity  to  counteract  the  sentiment,  but 
most  of  the  sheepish  countenances  expressed  that  the 
tune  was  the  thing,  one  or  two  with  a  smile  of  jovial 
cynicism,  and  kept  time  with  their  feet.  Through  the 
medley  of  voices — everybody  sang  except  Arnold  and 
Lindsay  and  the  Chinaman — Laura's  seemed  to  flow, 
separate  and  clear,  threading  the  jangle  upon  melody, 
and  turning  the  doggerel  into  an  appeal,  direct,  in- 
tense. When  Lindsay  presently  saw  it  addressed  to 
him,  in  the  unmistakable  intention  of  her  eyes,  he 
caught  his  breath. 

"  Dcd  ':  will  be  a  solemn  day 
When  rhe  soul  is  forced  away, 
It  will  oe  too  late  to  pray ; 

How  will  you  do  ?  " 

It  was  simple  enough.  All  her  supreme  desire  to 
convince,  to  turn,  to  make  awfully  plain,  had  centred 
upon  the  single  person  in  the  room  with  whom  she  had 
the  advantage  of  acquaintance,  whose  face  her  own 
could  seek  with  a  kind  of  right  to  response.  But  the 
sensation  DufI  Lindsay  tried  to  sit  still  under  was  not 
simple.  It  had  the  novelty,  the  shock,  of  a  plunge 
into  the  sea;   behind  his   decorous  countenance   he 


HILDA. 


37 


gasped  and  blinked,  with  unfamiliar  sounds  in  his  ears. 
His  soul  seemed  shudderingly  repelling  Laura's,  yet 
the  buffets  themselves  were  enthralling.  In  the 
strangeness  of  it  he  made  a  mechanical  movement  to 
depart,  picked  up  his  stick,  but  Arnold  was  sitting 
holding  his  chin,  wrapped  in  quiet  interest,  and  took 
no  notice.  The  hymn  stopped,  and  he  found  a  few 
minutes'  respite,  during  which  Ensign  Sand  addressed 
the  meeting,  unveiling  each  heart  to  its  possessor ; 
while  Laura  turnjsd  over  the  leaves  of  the  hymn-book, 
looking,  Lindsay  was  profoundly  aware,  for  airs  and 
verses  most  likely  to  help  the  siege  of  the  Army  to 
his  untaken,  sinful  citadel.  There  was  time  to  bring 
him  calmness  enough  to  wonder  whether  these  were 
the  symptoms  of  emotional  conversion,  the;  sort  of 
thing  these  people  went  in  for,  and  he  resolved  to 
watch  his  state  with  interest.  Then,  before  he  knew 
it,  they  were  all  down  on  their  knees  again,  and  Laura 
was  praying ;  and  he  was  not  aware  of  the  meaning  of 
a  single  word  that  she  said,  only  that  her  voice  was 
threading  itself  in  and  out  of  his  consciousness  bur- 
dened with  a  passion  that  made  it  exquisite  to  him. 
Her  appeal  lifted  itself  in  the  end  into  song,  low  and 
sweet. 

"  Down  at  the  Cross  where  my  Saviour  died, 
Down  where  for  cleansing  from  s'n  I  cried, 
There  to  my  heart  was  the  blood  applied, 
Glory  to  His  name  ! " 

They  let  her  sing  it  alone,  even  the  tempting  chorus, 
and  when  it  was  over  Lindsay  was  almost  certain  that 
his  were  not  the  preliminary  pangs  of  conversion  by  the 
methods  of  the  Salvation  Army.  Deliberately,  how- 
ever, he  postponed  further  analysis  of  them  until  after 
the  meeting  was  over.     He  would  be  compelled  then 


38 


HILDA. 


ill 
it 


to  go  away,  back  to  the  club  to  dinner,  or  something  ; 
they  would  put  out  the  lights  and  lock  the  place  up  ; 
he  thought  of  that.  He  glanced  at  the  lamps  with  a 
perception  of  the  finality  that  would  come  when  they 
were  extinguished— she  would  troop  away  with  the 
others  into  the  darkness— and  then  at  his  watch  to 
see  how  much  time  there  was  left.  More  exhortation 
followed  and  more  prayer  ;  he  was  only  ^ware  that  she 
did  not  speak.  She  sat  with  her  hand  over  her  eyes, 
and  Lindsay  had  an  excited  conviqtion  that  she  was 
still  occupying  herself  with  him.  He  looked  round  al- 
most furtively  to  detect  whether  any  one  else  was 
aware  of  it,  this  connection  that  she  was  blazoning  be- 
tween them,  and  then  relapsed,  staring  at  his  hat,  into 
a  sense  of  ungrammatical  iterations  beating  through  a 
room  full  of  stuffy  smells.  When  Laura  spoke  again 
his  eye  leaped  to  hers  in  a  rapt  effort  to  tell  her  that 
he  perceived  her  intention.  That  he  should  be  grate- 
ful, that  he  should  approve,  was  neither  here  nor  there  ; 
the  indispensable  thing  was  that  she  should  know  him 
conscious,  receptive.  She  read  three  or  four  sacred 
verses,  a  throb  of  tender  longing  from  the  very  Christ- 
heart,  "  Come  unto  me  ..."  The  words  stole  about 
the  room  like  tears.  Then  she  would  ask  "  all  present," 
she  said,  to  engage  for  a  moment  in  silent  prayer. 
There  was  a  wordless  interval,  only  the  vague  street 
noises  surging  past  the  door.  A  thrill  ran  along  the 
benches  as  Laura  brought  it  to  an  end  with  sudden 
singing.  She  was  on  her  feet  as  the  others  raised  their 
heads,  breaking  forth  clear  and  jubilant. 

"  I  am  so  wondrously  saved  from  sin, 
Jesus  so  sweetly  abides  within  ; 
There  at  the  Cross  where  he  took  me  in, 

Glory  to  His  Name." 


-i 


m^ 


li 


HILDA. 


39 


She  smiled  as  she  sang.  It  was  a  happy,  confident 
smile,  and  it  was  plain  that  she  longed  to  believe  it 
the  glad  reflection  of  spiritual  experience  of  many  who 
heard  her.  Lindsay's  perception  of  this  was  immedi- 
ate and  keen,  and  when  her  eyes  rested  for  an  instant 
of  glad  inquiry  upon  his  in  the  chartered  intimacy  of 
her  calling,  he  felt  a  pang  of  compunction.  It  was  a 
formless  reproach,  too  vague  for  anything  like  a 
charge,  but  it  came  nearest  to  defining  itself  in  the 
idea  that  he  had  gone  too  far— he  who  had  not  left 
his  seat.  When  the  hymn  was  finished,  and  Ensign 
Sand  said, "  The  meeting  is  now  o[-  .  for  testimonies," 
he  knew  that  all  her  hope  was  upon  him,  though  she 
looked  at  the  screen  above  his  head,  and  he  sat 
abashed,  with  a  prodigal  sense  surging  through  him 
of  what  he  would  rejoice  to  do  for  her  in  compensation. 
In  the  little  chilly  silence  that  followed  he  surprised 
his  own  eyes  moist  with  disappointment — it  had  all 
been  so  anxious  and  so  vain — and  he  felt  relief  and 
gratitude  when  the  man  who  beat  the  drum  stood  up 
and  announced  that  he  had  been  saved  for  eleven 
years,  with  details  about  how  badly  he  stood  in  need 
of  it  when  it  happened. 

"  Hallelujah  !  "  said  Ensign  Sand  cheerfully,  with  a 
meretricious  air  of  hearing  it  for  the  first  time.  "Any 
more?"  And  a  Norwegian  sailor  lurched  shamefac- 
edly upon  his  feet.  He  had  a  couple  of  inches  of 
straggling  yellow  beard  all  round  his  face,  and  twirled 
a  battered  straw  hat. 

"  I  haf  to  say  only  dis  word.  I  goin'  sdop  by 
Jesus.  Long  time  I  subbose  I  sdop  by  Jesus.  I 
subbose " 

•*  Glory  be  to  God ! "  remarked  Ensign  Sand  again, 
spiking  the  guns  of  the  Duke's   Own,  who  were  in- 


40 


HILDA. 


,M 


clined  to  be  amused.  "That  will  do,  thank  you. 
Now,  is  there  nobody  else  ?  Speak  up,  friends.  It'll 
do  you  no  harm,  none  whatever ;  it'll  do  you  that 
much  good  you'll  be  surprised.  Now,  who'll  be  the 
next  to  say  a  word  for  Jesus?"  She  was  nodding 
encouragement  at  the  negro  cook  as  if  she  knew  him 
for  a  wavering  soul,  and  he,  sunk  in  his  gleaming 
white  collar,  was  aware,  in  silent,  smiling  misery,  that 
the  expectations  of  the  meeting  were  toward  him. 
Laura  had  again  hidden  her  eyes  in  her  hand.  The 
negro  fingered  his  watch-chain  foolishly,  and  the  pret- 
tiest of  the  East  Indian  half-castes  tried  hard  to  dis- 
guise her  perception  that  an  African,  in  his  best 
clothes,  under  conviction  of  sin,  was  the  funniest  thing 
in  the  world.  The  silence  seemed  to  focus  itself  upon 
the  cook,  who  fumbled  at  his  coat  collar  and  cleared 
his  voice.  It  was  a  shock  to  all  concerned  when 
Stephen  Arnold,  picking  up  his  hat,  got  upon  his 
feet  instead. 

"  I  also,"  he  said,  "  would  offer  my  humble  testimony 
to  the  grace  of  God — with  all  my  heart." 

It  was  as  if  he  had  repeated  part  of  the  creed  in  the 
performance  of  his  ofiRce.  Then  he  turned  and  bent 
gravely  to  Lindsay.  "Shall  we  go  now?"  he  whis- 
pered, and  the  two  made  their  way  to  the  door,  leaving 
a  silence  behind  them  which  Lindsay  imagined,  on  the 
part  of  Ensign  Sand  at  least,  to  be  somewhat  resent- 
ful. As  they  passed  out,  a  voice  recovered  itself  and 
cried,  "  Hallelujah !  "  It  was  Laura's.  And  all  the 
way  to  the  club — Arnold  was  dining  with  him  there 
— Lindsay  listened' to  his  friend's  analysis  of  religious 
appeal  to  the  emotions,  but  chiefly  heard  that  clear 
music  above  a  sordid  din,  "  Hallelujah  !  "  "  Hallelu- 
jah ! " 


CHAPTER  IV. 


When  Alicia  Livingstone,  almost  believing  she 
liked  it,  drove  to  Number  Three,  Lai  Behari's  Lane 
and  left  cards  upon  Miss  Hilda  Howe,  she  was  only 
partially  rewarded.  Through  the  plaster  gate-posts, 
badly  in  want  of  repair  and  bearing,  sunk  in  one  of 
them,  a  marble  slab  announcing  "  Residence  with 
Board,"  she  perceived  the  squalid  attempt  the  place 
made  at  respectability,  the  servants  in  dirty  liveiy 
salaaming  curiously,  the  over-fed  squirrel  in  a  cage  in 
the  door,  the  pair  of  damaged  wicker  chairs  in  the 
porch  suggesting  the  easiest  intercourse  after  dinner, 
the  general  discoloration.  She  observed  with  irrita- 
tion that  it  was  a  down-at-heels  shrine  for  such  a 
divinity,  in  spite  of  its  six  dusty  crotons  in  crumbling 
plaster  urns,  but  the  irritation  was  rather  at  her  own 
repulsion  to  the  place  than  at  any  inconsistency  it 
presented.  What  she  demanded  and  expected  of  her- 
self was  that  Number  Three,  Lai  Behari's  Lane  should 
be  pleasing,  interesting,  acceptable  on  its  merits  as  a 
cheap  Calcutta  boarding-house.  She  found  herself  so 
unable  to  perceive  its  merits  that  it  was  almost  a  re- 
lief to  see  nothing  of  Miss  Howe  either ;  Hilda  had 
gone  to  rehearsal,  to  the  "  dance-house,"  the  servant 
said,  eyeing  the  unusual  landau.  Alicia  rolled  back 
into  streets  with  Christian  names  distressed  by  an  un- 
certainty as  to  whether  her  visit  had  been  a  disappoint- 


4a 


HILDA. 


ment  or  an  escape.  By  the  next  day,  however,  she 
was  well  pulled  together  in  favour  of  the  former  con- 
clusion— she  could  nearly  always  persuade  herself  of 
such  things  in  time — and  wrote  a  frank,  sweet  little 
note  in  her  picturesque  hand — she  never  joined  more 
than  two  syllables — to  say  how  sorry  she  had  been, 
and  would  Miss  Howe  come  to  lunch  on  Friday.  **  I 
should  love  to  make  it  dinner,"  she  said  to  herself,  as 
she  sealed  the  envelope,  **  but  before  one  knows  how 
she  will  behave  in  connection  with  the  men — I  sup- 
pose one  must  think  of  the  other  people." 

It  was  Friday,  and  Hilda  was  lunching.  The  two 
had  met  among  the  faint-tinted  draperies  of  Alicia's 
drawing-room — there  was  something  auroral  even 
about  the  mantlepiece — a  little  like  diplomatists  using 
a  common  tongue  native  to  neither  of  them.  Perhaps 
Alicia  drew  the  conventions  round  her  with  the  greater 
fluency;  Hilda  had  more  to  cover,  but  was  less  par- 
ticular about  it.  The  only  thing  she  was  bent  upon 
making  imperceptible  was  her  sense  of  the  comedy  of 
Miss  Livingstone's  effort  to  receive  her  as  if  she  had 
been  anybody  else.  Alicia  was  hardly  aware  of  what 
she  wanted  to  conceal,  unless  it  was  her  impression 
that  Miss  Howe's  dress  was  cut  a  trifle  too  low  in  the 
neck,  that  she  was  almost  too  effective  in  that  cream 
and  yellow  to  be  quite  right.  Alicia  remembered 
afterwards,  to  smile  at  it,  that  her  first  ten  minutes  of 
intercourse  with  Hilda  Howe  were  dominated  by  a 
lively  desire  to  set  Celine  at  her — with  such  a  founda- 
tion to  work  upon,  what  could  Celine  not  have  done  ? 
She  remembered  her  surprise,  too,  at  the  ordinary 
things  Hilda  said  in  that  rich  voice,  even  in  the  tem- 
pered drawing-room  tones  of  which  resided  a  hint  of 


HILDA. 


43 


the  seats  nearest  the  exit  under  the  gallery,  and  her 
wonder  at  the  luxury  of  gesture  that  went  with  them, 
movements  which  seemed  to  imply  blank  verse  and  to 
be  thrown  away  upon  two  women  and  a  little  furni- 
ture. A  consciousness  stood  in  the  room  between 
them,  and  their  commonplaces  about  the  picturesque- 
ness  of  the  bazaar  rode  on  long  absorbed  regards,  one 
reading,  the  other  anxious  to  read  ;  yet  the  encounter 
was  so  conventionally  creditable  to  them  both  that 
they  might  have  smiled  past  each  other  under  any 
circumstances  next  day  and  acknowledged  no  demand 
for  more  than  the  smile.     • 

The  cutlets  had  come  before  Hilda's  impression  was 
at  the  back  of  her  head,  her  defences  withdrawn,  her 
eyes  free  and  content,  her  elbow  on  the  table.  They 
had  found  a  portrait-painter. 

"  He  has  such  an  eye,"  said  Alicia,  "  for  the  possi- 
bilities of  character." 

"  Such  an  eye  that  he  develops  them.  I  know  one 
man  he  painted.  I  suppose  when  the  man  was  born 
he  had  an  embryo  soul,  but  in  the  meantime  he  and 
everybody  else  had  forgotten  about  it.  All  but  Salter. 
Salter  re-created  it  on  the  original  lines,  and  brought 
it  up,  and  gave  it  a  lodging  behind  the  man's  wrinkles. 
I  saw  the  picture.     It  was  fantastic — psychologically." 

"  Psychology  has  a  lot  to  say  to  portrait-painting,  I 
know,"  Alicia  said.  "Do  let  him  give  you  a  little 
more.  It's  only  Moselle."  She  felt  quite  direct,  and 
simple,  too,  in  uttering  her  postulate.  Her  eyes  had  a 
friendly,  unembarrassed  look ;  there  was  nothing  behind 
them  but  the  joy  of  talking  intelligently  about 
Salter. 

Hilda  did  not  even  glance  away.    She  looked  at  her 


44 


HILDA. 


hostess  instead,  with  an  expression  of  candour  so  ad- 
mirable that  one  might  easily  have  mistaken  it  to  be 
insincere.  It  was  part  of  her  that  she  could  swim  in 
any  current,  and  it  was  pleasant  enough,  for  the  mo- 
ment, to  swim  in  Alicia's.  Both  the  Moselle  and  the 
cutlets,  moreover,  were  of  excellent  quality. 

"  It's  everything  to  everything,  don't  you  think  ? 
And  especially,  thank  Heaven,  to  my  trade."  Her 
voice  softened  the  brusqueness  of  this ;  the  way  she 
said  it  gave  it  a  right  to  be  said  in  any  terms.  That 
was  the  case  with  flagrancies  of  hers  sometimes. 

"  To  discover  motives  and  morals  and  passions  and 
ambitions  and  to  make  a  picture  of  them  with  your 
own  body — your  face  and  hands  and  voice — compare 
our  plastic  opportunity  with  the  handling  of  a  brush 
to  do  it,  or  a  pen  or  a  chisel !  " 

"  I  know  what  you  mean,"  said  Alicia.  She  had  a 
little  flush,  and  an  excited  hand  among  the  wine- 
glasses. "  No,  I  don't  want  any ;  please  don't  bother 
me ! "  to  the  man  at  her  elbow  with  something  in 
aspic.     "  It's  much  more  direct — your  way." 

**  And,  I  think,  so  much  more  primitive,  so  much 
earlier  sanctioned,  abiding  so  originally  among  the 
instincts !  Oh,  yes !  if  we  are  lightly  esteemed  it  is 
because  we  are  bad  exponents.  The  ideal  has  dignity 
enough.  They  charge  us,  in  their  unimaginable  stu- 
pidity, with  failing  to  appreciate  our  lines,  especially 
when  they  are  Shakespeare's — with  being  unliterary. 
You  might — good  Heavens! — as  well  accuse  a  painter 
of  not  being  a  musician  ?  Our  business  lies  behind 
the  words — they  are  our  mere  medium  !  Rosalind 
wasn't  literary — why  should  I  be  ?  But  don't  indulge 
me  in  my  shop,  if  it  bores  you,"  Hilda  added  lightly, 


[ 


HILDA. 


45 


aware  as  she  was  that  Miss  Livingstone  was  never 
further  from  being  bored. 

"Oh,  please  go  on!  If  you  only  knew,"  her  lifted 
eyebrows  confessed  the  tedium  of  Calcutta  small-talk. 
"  But  why  do  you  say  you  are  lightly  esteemed  ? 
Surely  the  public  is  a  touchstone — and  you  hold  the 
public  in  the  hollow  of  your  hand  !  " 

Hilda  smiled.  **  Dear  old  public  !  It  does  its  best 
for  us,  doesn't  it?  One  loves  it,  you  know,  as  sailors 
love  the  sea,  never  believing  in  its  treachery  in  the 
end.  But  I  don't  know  why  I  say  we  are  lightly 
esteemed,  or  why  I  dogmatise  about  it  at  all.  I've 
done  nothing — I've  no  right.  In  ten  years  perhaps — 
no,  five — I'll  write  signed  articles  for  the  New  Review 
about  modern  dramatic  tendencies.  Meanwhile  you'll 
have  to  consider  that  the  value  of  my  opinions  is  pros- 
pective." 

"  But  already  you  have  succeeded — you  have  made 
a  place." 

"  In  Coolgardie,  in  Johannesburg.  I  think  they 
remember  me  in  Trichinopoly  too,  and — yes,  it  may  be 
so — in  Manila.  But  that  wasn't  legitimate  drama," 
and  Hilda  smiled  again  in  a  way  that  coloured  her 
unspoken  reminiscence,  to  Alicia's  eyes,  in  rose  and 
gold.  She  waited  an  instant  for  these  tints  to  ma- 
terialise, but  Miss  Howe's  smile  slid  discreetly  into  her 
vine-glass  instead. 

"There's  immense  picturesqueness  in  the  Philip- 
pines," she  went  on,  her  look  of  thoughtful  criticism 
contrasting  in  the  queerest  way  with  her  hat.  "  Real 
ecclesiastical  tyranny  with  pure  traditions.  One  won- 
ders what  America  will  do  with  those  friars,  when  she 
does  take  hold  there." 


46 


HILDA. 


"Do  you  think  she  is  going  to?"  asked  Alicia, 
vaguely.  It  was  the  merest  politeness — she  did  not 
wait  for  a  reply.  With  a  courageous  air  which  be- 
came her  charmingly  she  went  on,  "  Don't  you  long  to 
submit  yourself  to  London  ?    I  should." 

**0h,  I  must.  I  know  I  must.  It's  in  the  path  of 
duty  and  conscience — it's  not  to  be  put  off  forever. 
But  one  dreads  the  chained  slavery  of  London  " — she 
hesitated  before  the  audacity  of  adding,  '*  the  sordid 
hundred  nights,"  but  Alicia  divined  it,  and  caught 
her  breath  as  if  she  watched  the  other  woman  make  a 
hazardous  leap. 

"  You  are  magnificently  sure,"  she  said.  Alicia  her- 
self felt  curiously  buoyed  up  and  capable,  conscious 
of  vague  intuitions  of  immediate  achievement.  The 
lunch-table  still  lay  between  the  two,  but  it  had  be- 
come in  a  manner  intangible  ;  the  selves  of  them  had 
drawn  together,  and  regarded  each  other  with  ab- 
sorbent eyes.  In  Hilda's  there  was  an  instant  of 
consideration  before  she  said  : 

"  I  might  as  well  tell  you — you  won't  misunder- 
stand— that  I  am  sure.  I  expect  things  of  myself.  I 
hold  a  kind  of  mortgage  on  my  success ;  when  I  fore- 
close it  will  come,  bringing  the  long,  steady,  grasping 
chase  of  money  and  fame,  eyes  fixed,  never  a  day  to 
live  in,  only  to  accomplish,  every  moment  straddled 
with  calculation,  an  end  to  all  the  byeways  where  one 
finds  the  colour  of  the  sun.  The  successful  London 
actress,  my  dear — what  excursion  has  she?  A 
straight  flight  across  the  Atlantic  in  a  record-breaker, 
so  many  nights  in  New  York,  so  many  in  Chicago,  so 
many  in  a  Pullman  car,  and  the  net  result  in  every 
newspaper — an  existence  of  pure  artificiality  infested 


HILDA. 


47 


by  reporters.  It's  like  living  in  the  shell  of  your 
personality.  It's  the  house  forever  on  your  back ;  at 
the  last  you  arc  buried  in  it,  smirkin<^  in  your  coffin 
with  a  half-open  eye  on  the  floral  offerings.  There 
never  was  reward  so  qualified  by  its  conditions." 

"  Surely  there  would  be  some  moments  of  splendid 
compensation?  " 

"  Oh,  yes ;  and  for  those  in  the  end  we  are  all  will- 
ing to  perish !  But  then  you  know  all,  you  have  done 
all;  there  is  nothing  afterwards  but  the  eternal  strain 
to  keep  even  with  yourself.  I  don't  suppose  I  could 
begin  to  make  you  see  the  joys  of  a  strolling  player — 
they  aren't  much  understood  in  the  proscenium — but 
there  are  so  many,  honestly,  that  London  being  at  the 
top  of  the  hill,  I'm  not  panting  up.  My  way  of  going 
has  twice  wound  round  the  world  already.  But  I'm 
talking  like  an  illustrated  interview.  You  will  grant 
the  impertinence  of  all  I've  been  saying  when  I  tell 
you  that  I've  never  yet  had  an  illustrated  interview." 

"Aren't  they  almost  always  vulgar?  "  Alicia  asked. 
"  Don't  they  make  you  sit  the  wrong  way  on  a  chair, 
in  tights?" 

Hilda  threw  her  head  back  and  laughed  almost, 
Alicia  noted,  like  a  man.  She  certainly  did  not  hide 
her  mouth  with  her  hands  or  her  handkerchief,  as 
woman  often  do  in  bursts  of  hilarity ;  she  laughed 
freely,  and  as  much  as  she  wanted  to,  and  it  was  as 
clear  as  possible  that  tights  presented  themselves 
quite  preposterously  to  any  discussion  of  her  pro- 
fession. They  were  things  to  be  taken  for  granted, 
like  the  curtain  and  the  wings ;  they  had  no  relation 
to  clothing  in  the  world. 

Alicia  laughed  too.    After  all,  they  were  absurd — 


48 


HILDA. 


her  outsider's  prejudices.  She  said  something  like 
that,  and  Hilda  seemed  to  soar  again  for  her  point  of 
view  about  the  illustrated  interviews.  ♦'  They  are 
atrocities,"  she  said.  **  On  their  merits  they  ought  to 
be  cast  out  of  even  the  suburbs  of  art  and  literature. 
But  they  help  to  make  the  atmosphere  ihat  gives  us 

power  to  work,  and  if  they  do  that,  of  course  " the 

pursed  seriousness  of  her  lips  gave  Alicia  the  impres- 
sion that,  though  the  whole  world  took  offence,  the 
expediency  of  the  illustrated  interview  was  beyond 
discussion. 

The  servant  brought  them  coffee.  "  Shall  we  smoke 
here,"  said  Miss  Livingstone,  "  or  in  the  drawing- 
room  ?  " 

"Oh,  do  you  want  to?  Are  you  quite  sure  you 
like  it  ?  Please  don't  on  my  account — you  really 
mustn't.  Suppose  it  should  make  you  ill  ?  "  If  Hilda 
felt  any  tinge  of  amusement  she  kept  it  out  of  her 
face.     Nothing  was  there  but  cheerful  concern. 

"  It  won't  make  me  ill."  Alicia  lifted  her  chin  with 
delicate  assertiveness.  "  I  suppose  you  do  smoke, 
don't  you?" 

"  Occasionally — with  some  people.  Honestly,  have 
you  ever  done  it  before?" 

"  Four  times,"  said  Alicia,  and  then  turned  rose- 
colour  with  the  apprehension  that  it  sounded  amateur- 
ish to  have  counted  them.  "  I  thought  it  was  one  of 
your  privileges  to  do  it  always,  just  as  you — " 

"  Go  to  bed  with  our  boots  on  and  put  ice  down 
the  back  of  some  Serene  Highness's  neck.  I  suppose 
it  is,  but  now  and  then  I  prefer  to  dispense  with  it. 
In  my  bath,  for  instance,  and  almost  always  in  omni- 
buses." 


HILDA. 


49 


"  How  absurd  you  are !    Then  we'll  stay  here." 

Miss  Howe  softly  manipulated  her  cigarette  and 
watched  Alicia  sacrifice  two  matches. 

"  There's  Rosa  Norton  of  our  company,"  she  went 
on.  "  Poor  dear  old  Rosy.  She's  fifty-three — grey 
hair  smooth  back,  you  know,  and  a  kind  of  look  of 
anxious  mamma.  And  it  gets  into  her  eyes  and 
chokes  her,  poor  dear ;  but  blow  her  if  she  won't  be 
as  Bohemian  as  anybody.  I've  seen  her  smoke  in  a 
bonnet  with  strings  tied  under  her  chin.  I  got  up  and 
went  away." 

"  But  I  can't  possibly  affect  you  in  that  way,"  said 
Alicia,  putting  her  cigarette  down  to  finish,  as  an  af- 
terthought, a  marron  glac^e.  "  I'm  not  old  and  I'm 
not  grotesque." 

"  No,  but — oh,  all  right.  After  you  with  the 
matches,  please." 

*' I  beg  your  pardon.  How  thoughtless  of  me! 
Dear  me,  mine  has  gone  out.  Do  you  suppose  any- 
thing is  wrong  with  them  ?     Perhaps  they're  damp." 

"Trifle  dry,  if  anything,"  Hilda  returned,  with  the 
cigarette  between  her  lips,  "  but  in  excellent  order, 
really."  She  took  it  between  her  first  and  second 
finger  for  a  glance  at  the  gold  letters  at  the  end, 
leaned  back  and  sent  slow,  luxurious  spirals  through 
her  nostrils.  It  was  rather,  Alicia  reflected,  like  a 
horse  on  a  cold  day — she  hoped  Miss  Howe  wouldn't 
do  it  again.  But  she  presently  saw  that  it  was  Miss 
Howe's  way  of  doing  it. 

"  No,  you're  not  old  and  grotesque,"  Hilda  said, 
contemplatively;  "you're  young  and  beautiful."  The 
freedom  seemed  bred,  imperceptibly  and  enjoyably, 
from  the  delicate  cloud  in  the  air.    Alicia  flushed  ever 


50 


HILDA. 


so  little  under  it,  but  took  it  without  wincing.  She 
had  less  than  the  common  palate  for  flattery  of  the 
obvious  kind,  but  this  was  something  quite  different — 
a  mere  casual  and  unprejudiced  statement  of  fact. 

"  Fairly,"  she  said,  not  without  surprise  at  her  own 
calmness ;  and  there  was  an  instant  of  silence,  during 
which  the  commonplace  seemed  to  be  dismissed  be- 
tween them. 

*'  You  made  a  vivid  impression  here  last  year,"  said 
Alicia.     She  felt  delightfully  terse  and  to  the  point. 

"You  meah  Mr.  Lindsay.  Mr.  Lindsay  is  very  im- 
pressionaL         Do  you  know  him  well  ?  " 

Alicia  closed  her  lips,  and  a  faint  line  graved  itself 
on  each  side  of  them.  Her  whole  face  sounded  a  re- 
treat, and  her  eyes  were  cold — it  would  have  annoyed 
her  to  know  how  cold — with  distance. 

"  He  is  an  old  friend  of  my  brother's,"  she  said. 
Hilda  had  the  sensation  of  coming  unexpectedly, 
through  the  lightest  loam,  upon  a  hard  surface.  She 
looked  attentively  at  the  red  heart  of  her  cigarette, 
crisped  over  with  grey,  in  its  blackened  calyx. 

"  Most  impressionable,"  she  went  on,  as  if  Alicia  had 
not  spoken.  *'  As  to  the  rest  of  the  people — bah,  you 
can't  rouse  Calcutt  ..  It  is  sunk  in  its  torpid  liver, 
and  imagines  itself  superior.  It's  really  funny,  you 
know,  the  way  pancreatic  influences  can  be  idealised — 
made  to  serve  ennobling  ends.  But  Mr.  Lindsay  is 
—  different." 

"Yes?"  Miss  Livingstone's  intention  was  neutral, 
but,  in  spite  of  her,  the  asking  note  was  in  the  word. 

"  We  have  done  some  interesting  things  together 
here.  He  has  shown  me  the  queerest  places.  Yester- 
day he  made  me  go  with  him  to  Wellesley  Square  to 


HILDA. 


SI 


look  at  his  latest  enthusiasm  standing  in  the  middle  of 
it." 

"A  statue?" 

"  No,  a  woman,  preaching  and  warbling  to  the 
people.  She  wasn't  new  to  me — I  knew  her  before  he 
did — but  the  picture  was  and  the  performance.  She 
stood  poised  on  a  coolie's  basket  in  the  midst  of  a 
rabble  of  all  colours,  like  a  fallen  angel — I  mean  a 
dropped  one.  Light  seemed  to  come  from  her  hair  or 
eyes  or  something.  I  almost  expected  to  see  her  sail 
away  over  the  palms  into  the  sunset  when  it  was 
ended. " 

"  It  sounds  most  unusual,"  Alicia  said,  with  a  light 
smile.     Her  interest  was  rather  obviously  curbed. 

"  It  happens  every  day,  really,  only  one  doesn't  stop 
and  look ;  one  doesn't  go  round  the  corner." 

There  was  another  little  silence,  full  of  the  unwilling- 
ness of  Miss  Livingstone's  desire  to  be  informed. 

Hilda  knocked  the  ash  of  her  cigarette  into  her 
finger  bowl  and  waited.  The  pause  grew  so  stiff  with 
embarrassment  that  she  broke  it  herself. 

"And  I  regret  to  say  it  was  I  who  introduced 
them,"  she  said. 

"  Introduced  whom  ?  " 

"  Mr.  Lindsay  and  Miss  Laura  Filbert  of  the  Salva- 
tion Army.  They  met  at  Number  Three;  she  had 
come  after  my  soul.  I  think  she  was  disappointed," 
Hilda  went  on  tranquilly,  *'  because  I  would  only  lend 
it  to  her  while  she  was  there." 

"  Of  the  Salvation  Army  !  I  can't  imagine  why  you 
should  regret  it.     He  is  always  grateful  to  be  amused." 

"  Oh,  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  his  gratitude.  He 
is  rather  intense  about  it.     And— I  don't  know  that 


52  HILDA. 

my  regret  is  precisely  on  Mr.  Lindsay's  account.  Did 
I  say  so  ?  **  They  were  simple,  amiable  words,  and 
their  pertinence  was  far  from  insistent ;  but  Alicia's 
crude  blush — everything  else  about  her  was  perfectly 
worked  out — cried  aloud  that  it  was  too  sharp  a  pull 
up.  "  Perhaps,  though,"  Hilda  hurried  on  with  a  pang, 
<•  we  generalise  too  much  about  the  men." 

What  Miss  Livingstone  would  have  found  to  say — 
she  had  certainly  no  generalisation  to  offer  about 
Duff  Lindsay — had  not  a  servant  brought,  her  a  card 
at  that  moment,  is  embarrassing  to  consider.  The 
card  saved  her  the  necessity.  She  looked  at  it  blankly 
for  an  instant,  and  then  exclaimed,  "My  cousin, 
Stephen  Arnold  !  He's  a  reverend — a  Clarke  Mission 
priest,  and  he  will  come  straight  in  here.  What  shall 
we  do  with  our  cigarettes  ?  " 

Miss  Howe  had  a  pleasurable  sense  that  the  situa- 
tion was  developing. 

"  Yours  has  gone  out  again,  so  it  doesn't  much  mat- 
ter, does  it  ?  Drown  the  corpse  in  here,  and  he  won't 
guess  it  belongs  to  you."  She  pushed  the  finger 
bowl  across,  and  Alicia's  discouraged  remnant  went 
into  it. 

"  Don't  ask  me  to  sacrifice  mine,"  she  added,  and 
there  was  no  time  for  remonstrance ;  Arnold's  voice 
was  lifting  itself  at  the  door. 

"  Pray  may  I  come  in  ?  "  he  called  from  behind  the 
portifere. 

Hilda,  who  sat  with  her  back  to  it,  smiled  in  enjoy- 
ing recognition  of  the  thin,  high  academic  note,  the 
prim  finish  of  the  inflection.  It  reminded  her  of  a 
man  she  knew'who  "  did  "  curates  beautifully.  Arnold 
walked  past  her  with  his  quick,  humble,  clerical  gait, 


HILDA. 


53 


and  it  amused  her  to  think  that  he  bent  over  Alicia's 
hand  as  if  he  would  bless  it. 

"  You  can't  guess  how  badly  I  want  a  cup  of  coffee." 
He  flavoured  what  he  said,  and  made  it  pretty,  like  a 
woman.  "Let  me  confess  at  once,  that  is  what 
brought  me."  He  stopped  to  laugh  ;  there  was  a  hint 
of  formality  and  self-sacrifice  even  in  that.  "  It  is 
coffee  time,  isn't  it?"  Then  he  turned  and  saw 
Hilda,  and  she  was,  at  the  moment,  flushed  with  the 
luxury  of  her  sensations,  a  vision  as  splendid  as  she 
must  have  been  to  him  unusual.  But  he  only  closed 
his  lips  and  thrust  his  chin  out  a  little,  with  his  left 
hand  behind  him  in  one  of  his  intensely  clerical  atti- 
tudes, and  so  stood  waiting.  Hilda  reflected  after- 
wards that  she  could  hardly  have  expected  him  to  ex- 
claim, "  Whom  have  we  here  ?  "  with  upraised  hands, 
but  she  had  to  acknowledge  her  flash  of  surprise  at  his 
self-possession.  She  noted,  too,  his  grave  bow  when 
Alicia  mentioned  them  to  each  other,  that  there  was 
the  habit  of  deference  in  it,  yet  that  it  waved  her 
courteously,  so  to  speak,  out  of  his  life.  It  was  all  as 
interesting  as  the  materialisation  of  a  quaint  tradition, 
and  she  decided  not,  after  all,  to  begin  a  trivial  comedy 
for  herself  and  Alicia,  by  asking  the  Reverend  Stephen 
Arnold  whether  he  objected  to  tobacco.  She  had  an 
instant's  circling  choice  of  the  person  she  would 
represent  to  this  priest  in  the  little  intermingling  half- 
hour  of  their  lives  that  lay  shaken  out  before  them, 
and  dropped  unerringly.  It  really  hardly  mattered, 
but  she  always  had  such  instants.  She  was  aware  of 
the  shadow  of  a  regret  at  the  opulence  of  her  personal 
effect ;  her  hand  went  to  her  throat  and  drew  the  laces 
closer  together  there.    An   erectness  stole   into  her 


54  HILDA. 

body  as  she  sat,  and  a  look  into  her  eyes  that  divorced 
her  at  a  stroke  from  anything  that  could  have  spoken 
to  him  of  too  general  an  accessibility,  too  unthinking 
a  largesse.  She  went  on  smoking,  but  almost  immedi- 
ately her  cigarette  took  its  proper  note  of  insignifi- 
cance. Alicia,  speaking  of  it  once  afterwards  to 
Arnold,  found  that  he  had  forgotten  it. 

"  Even  in  College  street  you  have  heard  of  Miss 
Howe,"  Alicia  said,  and  the  negative  very  readable  in 
Arnold's  silent  brow  brought  Hilda  a  flicker  of  happi- 
ness at  her  hostess's  expense. 

"  I  don't  think  the  posters  carry  us  as  far  as  College 
street,"  she  said,  "  but  I  am  not  difificult  to  explain, 
Mr.  Arnold.  I  act  with  Mr.  Stanhope's  Company.  If 
you  lived  in  Chowringhee  you  couldn't  help  knowing 
all  about  me,  the  letters  are  so  large."  The  bounty 
of  her  well-spring  of  kindness  was  in  it  under  the  can- 
dour and  the  simplicity ;  it  was  one  of  those  least  of 
little  things  which  are  enough. 

Arnold  smiled  back  at  her,  and  she  saw  recognition 
leap  through  the  armour-plate  of  his  ecclesiasticism. 
He  glanced  away  again  quickly,  and  looked  at  the 
floor  as  he  said  he  feared  they  were  terribly  out  of  it 
in  College  street,  for  which,  however,  he  had  evidently 
no  apology  to  offer.  He  continued  to  look  at  the 
floor  with  a  careful  air,  as  if  it  presented  points  per- 
tinent to  the  situation.  Hilda  felt  herself — it  was  an 
odd  sensation — too  sunny  upon  the  nooked,  retiring 
current  that  flowed  in  him.  He  might  have  turned  to 
the  cool  accustomed  shadow  that  Alicia  made,  but 
she  was  aware  that  he  did  not,  that  he  was  struggling 
through  her  strangeness  and  his  shyness  for  something 
to  say  to  her.     He  stirred  his  coffee,  and  once   or 


HILDA.  5S 

twice  his  long  upper  lip  trembled  as  if  he  thought  he 
had  found  it ;  but  it  was  Alicia  who  talked,  making 
light  accusations  against  the  rigours  of  the  Mission 
House,  complaining  of  her  cousin  that  he  was  alto- 
gether given  over  to  bonds  and  bands,  that  she  per- 
sonally would  soon  cease  to  hold  him  in  affection  at 
all;  she  saw  so  little  of  him  it  wasn't  really  worth 
while. 

This  was  old  fencing  ground  between  them,  and 
Stephen  parried  her  pleasantly  enough,  but  his  eyes 
strayed  speculatively  to  the  other  end  of  the  table, 
where,  however,  they  rose  no  higher  than  the  firm, 
lightly-moulded  hand  that  held  the  cigarette. 

**  If  I  could  found  a  monastic  order,"  Hilda  said,  "  one 
of  the  rules  should  be  a  week's  compulsory  retirement 
into  the  world  four  times  a  year."  She  spoke  with  a 
kind  of  grave  brightness  :  it  was  difficult  to  know 
whether  she  was  altogether  in  jest. 

"  There  would  be  a  secession  all  over  the  place," 
Arnold  responded,  with  his  repressed  smile.  "You 
would  get  any  number  of  probationers;  I  wonder 
whether  you  would  keep  them  !  " 

"  During  that  week,"  Hilda  went  on,  "they  should 
be  compelled  to  dine  and  dance  every  night,  to  read  a 
*  Problem  *  novel  every  morning  before  luncheon,  to 
marry  and  be  given  in  marriage,  and  to  go  to  all  the 
variety  entertainments.  Think  of  the  austere  bliss 
of  the  return  to  the  cloisters  !  All  joy  lies  in  a  suc- 
cession of  sensations,  they  say.  Do  you  remember 
how  Lord  Ormont  arranged  his  pleasures  ?  Oh,  yes, 
my  brotherhood  would  be  popular,  as  soon  as  it  was 
understood." 

Alicia  hurried  in  with  something  palliating — she 


$6  HILDA. 

could  remember  flippancies  of  her  own  that  had  been 
rebuked — but  there  was  no  sigh  or  token  of  disapproval 
in  Arnold's  face.  What  she  might  have  observed 
there,  if  she  had  been  keen  enough  in  vision,  was  a 
slight  disarrangement,  so  to  speak,  of  the  placid 
priestly  mask,  and  something  like  the  original  under- 
graduate looking  out  from  beneath. 

Hilda  began  to  put  on  her  gloves.  The  left  one 
gaped  at  two  finger-ends;  she  buttoned  it  with  the 
palm  thrown  up  and  outward,  as  if  it  were  the  dain- 
tiest spoil  of  the  Avenue  de  I'Op^ra. 

"  Not  yet !  "  Alicia  cried. 

"Thanks,  I  must.  To-night  is  our  last  full  re- 
hearsal, and  I  have  to  dress  the  stage  for  the  first  act 
before  six  o'clock.  And  after  pulling  all  that  furniture 
about,  I  shall  want  an  hour  or  two  in  bed." 

"You!     But  it's  monstrous.    Is  there  nobody  else  ?" 

"I  wouldn't  let  anybody  else,"  Hilda  laughed. 
"  Don't  forget,  please,  that  we  are  only  strolling  play- 
ers, odds  and  ends  of  people,  mostly  from  the  An- 
tipodes. Don't  confound  our  manners  and  customs 
with  anything  you've  heard  about  the  Lyceum. 
Good-bye.  It  has  been  charming.  Good-bye,  Mr. 
Arnold." 

But  Alicia  held  her  hand.  "  The  papers  say  it  is  to 
be  The  Offence  of  Galilee^  after  all,"  she  said. 

"Yes.  Hamilton  Bradley  is  all  right  again,  and 
we've  found  a  pretty  fair  local  Judas — amateur.  We 
couldn't  possibly  put  it  on  without  Mr.  Bradley.  He 
takes  the  part  of" — Hilda  glanced  at  the  hem  of  the 
listening  priestly  robe — "  of  the  chief  character,  you 
know." 

"  That  was  the  great  Nonconformist  success  at  home 


HILDA.  57 

last  year,  wasn't  it  ?  "  Arnold  asked ;  "  Leslie  Patullo's 
play  ?  I  knew  him  at  Oxford.  I  can't  imagine — he's 
a  queer  chap  to  be  writing  things  like  that." 

"  It  works  out  better  than  you — than  one  might 
suppose,"  Hilda  returned,  moving  toward  the  door. 
"  Some  of  the  situations  are  really  almost  novel,  in 
spite  of  all  your  centuries  of  preaching."  She  sent  a 
disarming  smile  with  that,  looking  over  her  shoulder 
in  one  of  her  most  effective  hesitations,  one  hand 
holding  back  the  portiere. 

"  And  next  week  ?  "  cried  Alicia. 

"  Oh,  next  week  we  do  L Amourette  de  Giselle — 
Frank  Golding's  re-vamp.     Good-bye !     Good-bye  ! " 

•'  I  wonder  very  much  what  Patullo  has  done  with 
The  Offence  of  Galilee,''  Arnold  said,  after  she  had 
gone. 

"Come  and  see,  Stephen.  We  have  a  box,  and 
there  will  be  heaps  of  room.     It's — suitable,  isn't  it?  " 

"  Oh,  quite." 

"  Then  dine  with  us — the  Yardleys  are  coming — and 
go  on.     Why  not  ?" 

"  Thanks,  very  much  indeed.  It  is  sure  to  reward 
one.  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  give  myself  that  pleas- 
ure." 

Arnold  made  a  longer  visit  than  usual ;  his  cup  of 
coffee,  indeed,  became  a  cup  of  tea;  and  his  talk, 
while  he  staid,  seemed  to  suffer  less  from  the  limita- 
tions  of  his  Order  than  it  usually  did.  He  was  fluent 
and  direct ;  he  allowed  it  to  appear  that  he  read  more 
than  his  prayers,  that  his  glance  at  the  world  had  still 
a  speculation  in  it ;  and  when  he  went  away,  he  left 
Alicia  with  flushed  cheeks  and  brightened  eyes,  mur- 
muring a  vague  inward  corollary  upon  her  day — 

"  It  pays !    It  pays !  " 


CHAPTER  V- 

Mr.  Llewellyn  Stanhope's  Company  was  not  the 
only  combination  that  offered  itself  to  the  entertain- 
ment of  Calcutta  that  December  Saturday  night.  The 
ever-popular  Jimmy  Finnigan  and  his  "Surprise 
Party  " — he  sailed  up  the  Bay  as  regularly  as  the  Vice- 
roy descended  from  the  hills — had  been  advertising 
"  Side-splitting  begins  at  9 :30.  Prices  as  usual,"  with 
reference  to  this  particular  evening  for  a  fortnight. 
In  the  Athenian  Theatre — it  had  a  tin  roof,  and  no- 
body could  hear  the  orchestra  when  it  rained — the 
Midgets  were  presenting  the  earlier  collaborations  of 
Messrs.  Gilbert  and  Sullivan,  every  Midget  guaranteed 
under  nine  years  of  age.  Colonel  Pike's  Great  Occi- 
dental Circus  had  been  in  full  blast  on  the  Maidan  for 
a  week.  It  became  a  great  occidental  circus  when 
Colonel  Pike  married  the  proprietress.  They  were 
both  staying  at  the  Grand  Oriental  Hotel  at  Singapore 
when  she  was  made  a  relict  through  cholera,  and  he 
had  more  time  than  he  knew  what  to  do  with,  to  say 
nothing  of  moustaches  that  predestined  him  to  a  box- 
office.  And  certainly  circumstances  justified  the 
lady's  complaisance,  for  while  hitherto  hers  had  been 
but  a  fleeting  show,  it  was  now,  in  the  excusably  im- 
aginative terms  of  Colonel  Pike,  an  architectural  fea- 
ture of  the  cold  weather.  There  was  the  mystic 
bower,  too,  in  an  octagonal  tent  under  a  pipal  tree, 


HILDA. 


59 


which  gave  you,  by  an  arrangement  of  looking-glasses, 
the  most  unaccountable  sensations  for  one  rupee  ;  and 
a  signboard  cried  **  Know  Thyself !  "  where  a  physio- 
logical display  lurked  from  the  eyes  of  the  police  be- 
hind a  perfectly  respectable  skeleton  at  one  end  of 
Peri  Chandra's  Gully.  Llewellyn  Stanhope  saw  that 
there  was  competition,  sighed  to  think  how  much,  as 
he  stood  in  the  foggy  vestibule  of  the  Imperial  Theatre 
wrapped  in  the  impressive  folds  of  his  managerial 
cape,  and  pulled  his  moustache  and  watched  the  occa- 
sional carriage  that  rolled  his  way  up  the  narrow  lane 
from  Chowringhee.  He  thought  bitterly,  standing 
there,  of  Calcutta's  recognition  of  the  claims  of  legiti- 
mate drama,  for  the  dank  darkness  was  full  of  the  noise 
of  wheels  and  the  flashing  of  lamps  on  the  way  to  ac- 
cord another  season's  welcome  to  Jimmy  Finnigan. 
"  I  might  've  learned  this  town  well  enough  by  now," 
he  reflected,  "to  know  that  a  bally  minstrel  show's 
about  the  size  of  it."  Mr.  Stanhope  had  not  Mr. 
Finnigan's  art  of  the  large  red  lips  and  the  twanging 
banjo ;  his  thought  was  scornful  rather  than  envious. 
He  aspired,  moreover,  to  be  known  as  the  pilot  of 
stars,  at  least  in  the  incipience  of  their  courses,  to  be 
taken  seriously  by  association,  since  nature  had  ar- 
ranged that  he  never  could  be  on  his  intrinsic  merits. 
His  upper  lip  was  too  short  for  that,  his  yellow  mous- 
tache too  curly,  while  the  perpetual  bullying  he  under- 
went at  the  hands  of  leading  ladies  gave  him  an  air  of 
deference  to  everybody  else  which  was  sometimes 
painfully  misunderstood.  The  stars,  it  must  be  said 
regretfully,  in  connection  with  so  laudable  an  ambition, 
nearly  always  betrayed  him,  coming  down  with  an  un- 
mistakably meteoric  descent,  stony-broke  in  the  utter- 


6o  ^  HILDA. 

most  ends  of  the  earth,  with  a  strong  inclination  to 
bring  the  cause  of  that  misfortune  before  the  Consular 
Courts.  They  seldom  succeeded  in  this  design,  since 
Llewellyn  was  usually  able  to  prove  to  them  in  advance 
that  it  would  be  fruitless  and  expensive,  but  the  patlis 
of  Eastern  capitals  were  strewn  with  his  compromises, 
in  Japanese  yen,  Chinese  dollars,  Indian  rupees,  for 
salaries  which  no  amount  of  advertising  could  wheedle 
into  the  box-office.  When  the  climax  came  Llewellyn 
usually  went  to  hospital  and  received  the  reporters  of 
local  papers  in  pathetic  audience  there,  which  coun- 
teracted the  effect  of  the  astounding  statements  the 
stars  made  in  letters  to  the  editor,  and  yet  gave  the 
public  clearly  to  understand  that  owing  to  its  coldness 
and  neglect  a  number  of  ladies  and  gentlc.nen  of  very 
superior  talents  were  subsisting  in  their  midst  mainly 
upon  brinjals  and  soda  water.     *'  I'm  in  hospital,"  Mr. 

Stanhope  would  say  to  the  reporters,  "and  I'm  d 

glad  of  it." — he  always  insisted  on  the  oath  going  in, 
it  appealed  so  sympathetically  to  the  domiciled  Eng- 
lishman grown  cold  to  superiority — "  for,  upon  my 
soul,  I  don't  know  where  I'd  turn  for  a  crust  if  I 
weren't."  In  the  end  the  talented  ladies  and  gentle- 
men usually  went  home  by  an  inexpensive  line  as  the 
voluntary  arrangement  of  a  public  to  whom  plain  soda 
was  a  ludicrous  hardship,  and  native  vegetables  an 
abomination  at  any  price.  Then  Llewellyn  and  Rosa 
Norton — she  had  a  small  inalienable  income,  and  they 
were  really  married,  though  they  preferred  for  some 
inexplicable  reason  to  be  thought  guilty  of  more  im- 
proper behaviour — would  depart  in  another  direction 
full  of  gratification  for  the  present  and  of  confidence 
for  the    future.    Llewellyn  usually  made  a  parting 


HILDA.  6l 

statement  to  the  newspapers  that,  although  his  aims 
were  unalterably  high,  he  was  not  above  profiting  by 
experience,  and  that  next  season  he  could  be  relied 
upon  to  hit  the  taste  of  the  community  with  precision. 
This  year,  as  we  know,  he  had  made  a  serious  effort  by 
insisting  that  at  least  a  proportion  of  his  ladies  and 
gentlemen  should  be  high  kickers,  and  equal  to  an  im- 
itation, good  enough  for  the  Orient,  of  most  things 
done  by  the  illustrious  Mr.  Chevalier.  But  the  fact 
that  Mr.  Stanhope  had  selected  The  Offence  of  Galilee 
to  open  with  tells  its  own  talc.  He  was  convinced, 
but  not  converted,  and  he  stood  there  with  his  little 
legs  apart,  chewing  a  straw  above  the  three  uncut 
emeralds  that  formed  the  chaste  decoration  of  his 
shirt-front,  giving  the  public  of  Calcutta  one  more 
chance  to  redeem  itself. 

It  began  to  look  as  if  Calcutta  were  not  wholly 
irredeemable.  A  ticca-gharry  deposited  a  sea  cap- 
tain ;  three  carriages  arrived  in  succession  ;  an  indef- 
inite number  of  the  Duke's  Own,  hardly  any  of  them 
drunk,  filed  in  to  the  rupee  seats  under  the  gallery  ; 
an  overflow  from  Jimmy  Finnigan,  who  could  no 
longer  give  his  patrons  even  standing  room.  When 
this  occurred,  Llewellyn  turned  and  swung  indifferently 
away  in  the  direction  of  the  dressing-rooms.  When 
Jimmy  Finnigan  closed  his  doors  so  early  there  was 
no  further  cause  for  anxiety.  Calcutta  was  abroad 
and  stirring,  and  would  turn  for  amusement  even  to 
The  Offence  of  Galilee. 

Eventually — that  is,  five  minutes  before  the  curtain 
rose — the  representatives  of  the  leading  Calcutta 
journals  decided  that  they  were  justified  in  describing 
the  house  as  a  large  and  fashionable  audience.     The 


62  HILDA. 

Viceroy  had  taken  a  box  and  sent  an  /.vide-de-Camp 
to  sit  in  it,  also  a  pair  of  M.P.s  from  the  North  of 
England,  whom  he  was  expected  to  attend  to  in 
Calcutta,  and  the  governess.  The  Commander-in- 
Chief  had  not  been  solicited  to  be  present,  the 
theatrical  season  demanding  an  economy  in  such 
personalities  if  they  were  to  go  round  ;  but  a  Judge 
of  the  High  Court  had  a  party  in  the  front  row,  and  a 
Secretary  to  the  Bengal  Government  sat  behind  him. 
To  speak  of  unofificials,  there  must  have  been  quite 
forty  lakhs  of  tea  and  jute  and  indigo  in  the  house, 
very  genial  and  prosperous,  to  say  nothing  of  hides 
and  seeds,  and  the  men  who  sold  money  and  bought 
diamonds  with  the  profits,  which  shone  in  their  wives* 
hair.  A  duskiness  prevailed  in  the  bare  arms  and 
shoulders ;  much  of  the  hair  was  shining  and  abun- 
dant, and  very  black.  A  turn  of  the  head  showed  a 
lean  Greek  profile,  an  outline  bulbous  and  Armenian, 
the  smooth  creamy  mask  of  a  Jewess,  while  here  and 
there  glimmered  something  more  opulent  and  inviting 
still,  which  proclaimed,  if  it  did  not  confess,  the  re- 
mote motherhood  of  the  zenana  and  the  origin  of  the 
sun.  An  audience  of  fluttering  fans  and  wrinkled 
shirt  collars — the  evening  was  warm  under  the  gas- 
lights— sensuous,  indolent,  already  amused  with  itself. 
Not  an  old  woman  in  it  from  end  to  end,  hardly  a 
man  turned  fifty,  and  those  who  were  had  the  air  and 
looked  to  have  the  habits  of  twenty-five — an  audience 
that  might  have  got  up  and  stretched  itself  but  for 
good  manners,  and  walked  out  in  childish  boredom  at 
having  to  wait  for  the  rise  of  the  curtain,  but  sat  on 
instead,  diffusing  an  atmosphere  of  affluence  and 
delicate  scents,  and  suggesting,  with  imperious  chins, 


HILDA.  63 

the  use  of  quick  orders  in  a  world  of  personal  superi- 

ority. 

Thus  the  stalls—they  were  spindling  cane-bottomed 
chairs — and  the  boxes,  in  one  of  which  the  same  spind- 
ling cane-bottomed  chairs  supported,  in  more  expen- 
sive seclusion,  Surgeon-Major  and  Miss  Livingstone, 
the  Reverend  Stephen  Arnold,  and  two  or  three  other 
people.  The  Duke's  Own  sat  under  the  gallery, 
cheek  by  jowl  with  all  the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  an 
Eastern  port,  well  on  the  lookout  for  any  offensive 
personalities  from  the  men  of  the  ships,  and  spitting 
freely.  Here,  too,  was  an  ease  of  shoulder  and  a 
freedom  from  the  cares  of  life— at  a  venture  the  wives 
were  taking  in  washing  in  Brixton,  and  the  children 
sent  to  Board  School  at  the  expense  of  the  nation. 
And  in  a  climate  like  this  it  was  a  popular  opinion 
that  a  man  must  either  enjoy  himself  or  commit 
suicide. 

The  Sphinx  on  the  crooked  curtain  looked  above 
and  beyond  them  all.  It  was  a  caricature  of  the 
Sphinx,  but  could  not  confine  her  gaze. 

Hilda's  audience  that  night  knew  all  about  The 
Offence  of  Galilee  from  the  English  illustrated  papers. 
The  illustrated  papers  had  a  great  way  of  ministering 
to  the  complacency  of  Calcutta  audiences;  they  con- 
tained photographs  of  almost  every  striking  scene, 
composed  at  the  leisure  of  the  cast,  but  so  vividly  sup- 
plemented with  descriptions  of  the  leading  lady's 
clothes  that  it  hardly  required  any  effort  of  the  imagi- 
nation to  conjure  up  the  rest.  The  postures  and  the 
chief  garments  of  Pilate — he  was  eating  pomegranates 
when  the  curtain  rose  and  listening  to  scandal  from 
his  slave  maidens  about  Mary   Magdalene — were  at 


] 


64  HILDA. 

once  recognised  in  their  resemblance  to  those  of  the 
photographs,  and  in  the  thrill  of  this  satisfaction  any 
discrepancies  in  cut  and  texture  passed  generally  un- 
observed. A  silent  curiosity  settled  upon  the  house, 
half  reverent,  as  if  with  the  Bible  names  came  throng- 
ing a  troop  of  sacred  associations  to  cluster  about 
personalities  brusquely  torn  out  of  church,  and  peo- 
ple listened  for  familiar  sentences  with  something  like 
the  composed  gravity  with  which  they  heard  on  Sun- 
days  the  reading  of  the  second  lesson.  But  as  the 
stage-talk  went  on,  the  slave-maidens  announcing 
themselves  without  delay  comfortably  modern  and 
commonplace,  and  Pilate  a  cynic  and  a  decadent, 
though  as  distinctively  from  Melbourne,  it  was  possi- 
ble to  note  the  breaking  up  of  this  sentiment.  It  was 
plain,  after  all,  that  no  standard  of  ideality  was  to  be 
maintained  or  struggled  after.  The  relief  was  palpa- 
ble ;  nevertheless,  when  Pilate's  wife  cast  a  shrewish 
gibe  at  him  over  the  shoulder  of  her  exit,  the  audience 
showed  but  a  faint  inclination  to  be  amused.  It  was 
to  be  a  play  evidently  like  any  other  play,  the  same 
coarse  fibre,  the  same  vivid  and  vulgar  appeals.  It 
is  doubtful  whether  this  idea  was  critically  present 
to  any  one  but  Stephen  Arnold,  but  people  uncon- 
sciously tasted  the  dramatic  substance  offered  them, 
and  leaned  back  in  their  chairs  with  the  usual  patient 
acknowledgment  that  one  mustn't  expect  too  much 
of  a  company  that  found  it  worth  while  to  come  to 
Calcutta.  The  house  grew  submissive  and  stolid,  but 
one  could  see  half-awakened  prejudices  sitting  in  the 
dress-circle.  The  paper-chasing  Secretary  said  to  the 
most  intelligent  of  his  party  that  on  the  whole  he 
liked  his  theology  neat,  forgetting  that  the  preference 


i 


m 


L?  ' 


HILDA. 


65 


belonged  to  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  in  connection  with  a 
notable  lady  novelist;  and  the  most  intelligent— it 
was  Mrs.  Barberry — replied  that  it  did  seem  strange. 
The  depths  under  the  gallery  were  critically  attentive, 
though  Llewellyn  Stanhope  felt  them  hostile  and  long- 
ing for  verbal  brick-bats;  and  the  Reverend  Mr. 
Arnold  shrank  into  the  furthest  corner  of  Surgeon- 
Major  Livingstone's  box,  and  knew  all  the  misery  of 
outrage.  Pilate  and  the  slave-maidens,  Pilate's  fat 
wife  and  an  unspeakably  comic  centurion,  offered  as 
yet  hardly  more  than  a  prelude,  but  the  monstrosity 
of  the  whole  performance  was  already  projected  upon 
Arnold's  suffering  imagination.  This,  then,  was  what 
PatuUo  had  done  with  it.  But  what  other,  he  asked 
himself  in  quiet  anger,  could  Patullo  have  been  ex- 
pected to  do — the  fellow  he  remembered  ?  Arnold 
tilted  his  chair  back  and  stared,  with  arms  folded  and 
sombre  brows,  at  the  opposite  wall.  He  looked  once 
at  the  door,  but  some  spirit  of  self-torture  kept  him  in 
his  seat.  If  so  much  offence  could  be  made  with  the 
mere  crust  and  envelope,  so  to  speak,  of  the  sacred 
story,  what  sacrilege  might  not  be  committed  with 
the  divine  personalities  concerned — with  Our  Lord 
and  His  Mother?  He  remembered,  with  the  touch  of 
almost  physical  nausea  that  assailed  him  when  he  saw 
them,  one  or  two  pictures  in  recent  Paris  exhibitions 
where  the  coveted  accent  of  surprise  had  been  pro- 
duced by  representing  the  sacred  figure  in  the  trivial 
monde  of  the  boulevards,  and  fixed  '^pon  them  as  the 
source  of  Patullo's  intolerable  inspiration.  Certain 
muscles  felt  responsive  at  the  thought  of  Patullo 
which  Arnold  had  forgotten  he  possessed  ;  it  was  so 
seldom  that  a  missionary  priest,  even  of  athletic  tra- 


1 


11 


66  HILDA. 

ditions,  came  in  contact  with  anybody  who  required 
to  be  kicked. 

Alicia  was  in  front  with  the  Yardleys,  dropping  her 
unfailing  plummet  into  the  evening's  experience. 
Arnold,  hesitating  over  the  rudeness  of  departure, 
thought  she  was  sufficiently  absorbed ;  she  would 
hardly  mind.  The  centurion  slapped  his  tin  armour, 
and  made  a  jest  about  the  King  of  the  Jews  which 
reached  Stephen  over  his  hostess's  shoulder  and 
seemed  to  brand  him  where  he  sat.  He  looked  about 
for  his  hat  and  some  excuse  that  would  serve,  and 
while  he  looked  the  sound  of  applause  rose  from  the 
house.  It  was  a  demonstration  without  great  energy, 
hardly  more  than  a  flutter  from  stall  to  stall,  with  a 
vague,  fundamental  noise  from  the  gallery  ;  but  it  had 
the  quality  which  acclaimed  something  new.  Arnold 
glanced  at  the  stage  and  saw  that  while  Pilate  and  the 
hollow-chested  slaves  and  the  tin  centurion  were  still 
on  they  had  somehow  lost  significance  and  colour,  had 
faded  into  the  impotent  figures  of  a  tapestry,  and  that 
all  the  meaning  and  the  dominance  of  the  situation 
had  gathered  into  the  person  of  a  woman  of  the  East 
who  danced.  She  was  almost  discordant  in  her  literal- 
ness,  in  her  clear  olive  tints  and  the  kol  smudges  under 
her  eyes,  the  string  of  coi^s  in  the  mass  of  her  fall'^n 
hair,  and  her  unfettered  body.  Beside  her  the  slave- 
girls,  crouching,  looked  liked  painted  shells.  She 
danced  before  Pilate  in  strange  Eastern  ways,  in  plastic 
weavings  and  gesturings  that  seemed  to  be  the  telling 
of  a  tale ;  and  from  the  orchestra  only  one  unknown 
instrument  sobbed  out  to  help  her.  The  women  of 
the  people  have  ever  bought  in  Palestine,  buy  to-day 
in  the  Mousky,  the  course,  thick  grey-blue  cotton  that 


4 

A 


.V 


I'*^ 


HILDA. 


6; 


fell  about  her  limbs,  and  there  was  audacity  in  the 
poverty  of  her  beaten  silver  anklets  and  armlets. 
These  shone  and  twinkled  with  her  movements ;  but 
her  softly  splendid  eyes  and  reddened  lips  had  the  im- 
mobility of  the  bazaar.  People  looked  at  their  play- 
bills to  see  whether  it  was  really  Hilda  Howe  or  some 
nautch-queen  borrowed  from  a  native  theatre.  By 
the  time  she  sank  before  Pilate  and  placed  his  foot 
upon  her  head  a  new  spirit  had  breathed  upon  the 
house.  Under  the  unexpectedness  of  the  repre- 
sentation it  sat  up  straight,  and  there  was  a  keenness 
of  desire  to  see  what  would  happen  next  which  plainly 
curtailed  the  applause,  as  it  does  with  the  children 
at  a  pantomime. 

"  Have  you  ever  seen  anything  like  it  before  ?  " 
Alicia  asked  Captain  Yardley  ;  and  he  said  bethought 
he  had  once,  in  Algiers,  but  not  nearly  so  well  done. 
Arnold  rose  again  to  go,  but  the  Magdalene  had  begun 
to  use  her  arts  upon  Pilate  in  the  well-known  scene 
about  which  the  newspapers  reported  long  afterwards 
how  the  Pope  had  declared  that  if  Miss  Howe  had  not 
been  a  Protestant  and  so  impervious  he  would  have 
excommunicated  her — and  as  he  looked  his  movement 
imperceptibly  changed  to  afford  him  a  better  place. 
He  put  an  undecided  hand  upon  a  prop  of  the  box 
that  rose  behind  Alicia's  shoulder,  and  so  stood  lean- 
ing and  looking,  more  conspicuous  in  the  straight  lines 
and  short  shoulder-cape  of  the  frock  of  his  Order  than 
he  knew.  Hilda,  in  one  of  those  impenetrable  regards 
which  she  threw  straight  in  front  of  her  while  Pilate 
yawned  and  posed  nearer  and  nearer  the  desire  of  the 
Magdalene  to  be  admitted  to  his  household,  was  at 
once  aware  of  him.     Presently  he  sat  down  again — it 


! 


68  HILDA. 

was  '-♦^ill  the  profane,  the  fabulous,  the  horrible  PatuUo, 
but  a  strain  of  pure  gold  had  come  into  the  fabric 
worth  holding  in  view,  impossible,  indeed,  to  close  the 
eyes  upon.  Far  enough  it  was  from  any  semblance  to 
historical  fact,  but  almost  possible,  almost  admissible, 
in  the  form  of  the  woman,  as  historical  fiction.  She 
dared  to  sit  upon  the  floor  now,  in  the  ungraceful, 
huddled  Eastern  fashion,  clasping  her  knees  to  her 
breast,  with  her  back  half  turned  to  her  lord  the  friend 
of  Caesar,  so  that  he  could  not  see  the  design  that  sat 
behind  the  mask  of  her  sharp  indifference.  She  rested 
her  chin  upon  her  knees,  and  let  the  blankncss  of  her 
beauty  exclaim  upon  the  subtlety  of  her  replies,  plainly 
measuring  the  power  of  her  provocation  against  the 
impoverished  quality  that  camp  and  grove,  court  and 
schools,  might  leave  upon  august  Roman  sensibilities. 
It  was  the  old,  old  sophistication,  so  perfect  in  its  con- 
centration behind  the  >(W-brushed  eyes  and  the  brown 
breasts,  the  igniting,  flickering,  raging  of  an  instinct 
upon  the  stage.  Alicia,  when  it  was  over,  said  to  Mrs. 
Yardley,  "  How  the  modern  woman  goes  off  upon  side 
issues  ?  "  to  which  that  lady  nodded  a  rather  suspicious 
assent. 

Long  before  Hilda  had  begun  to  act  for  Arnold,  to 
play  to  his  special  consciousness,  he  was  fastened  to  his 
chair,  held  down,  so  to  speak,  by  a  whirlpool  of  con- 
flicting impulses.  She  did  so  much  more  than  "  lift  "• 
the  inventive  vulgarisation  of  the  Bible  story  in  the 
common  sense ;  she  inspired  and  transfused  it  so  that 
wherever  she  appeared  people  irresistibly  forgot  the 
matter  for  her,  or  made  private  acknowledgments  to 
the  effect  that  something  was  to  be  said  even  for  an 
impious  fantasy  which  gave  her  so  unique  an  opportu- 


HILDA. 


69 


y-A 


nity.  To  Arnold  her  vivid  embodiment  of  an  incident 
in  that  which  was  his  morning  and  evening  meditation 
made  special  appeal,  and  though  it  was  in  a  way  as  if 
she  had  thrust  her  heathen  torch  into  his  Holy  of  Ho- 
lies, he  saw  it  lighted  with  fascination,  and  could  not 
close  the  door  upon  her.  The  moment  of  her  discovery 
of  this  came  early,  and  it  is  only  she,  perhaps,who  could 
tell  how  the  strange  bond  wove  itself  that  drew  her  be- 
ing — the  M.  ^dalene's — to  the  priest  who  sat  behind  a 
lady  in  swansdown  and  chiffon  in  the  upper  box  near- 
est to  the  stage  on  the  right.  The  beginnings  of  such 
things  are  untraceable,  but  the  fact  may  be  considered 
in  connection  with  this  one  that  Hamilton  Bradley, 
who  represented,  as  we  have  been  told  he  would,  the 
Chief  Character,  did  it  upon  lines  very  recognisably 
those  of  the  illustrations  of  sacred  books,  very  correct 
as  to  the  hair  and  beard  and  pictured  garment  of  the 
Galilean  ;  with  every  accent  of  hollow-eyed  pallor  and 
inscrutable  remoteness,  with  all  the  thin  vagueness, 
too,  of  a  popular  engraving,  the  limitations  and  the 
depression.  Under  it  one  saw  the  painful  inconsist- 
ency of  the  familiar  Hamilton  Bradley  of  other  present- 
ations, and  realised  with  irritation,  which  must  have 
been  tenfold  in  Hilda,  how  he  hated  the  part.  Per- 
haps this  was  enough  in  itself  to  send  her  dramatic 
impulse  to  another  focus,  and  the  strangeness  of  the  ad- 
venture was  a  very  thing  she  would  delight  in.  What- 
ever may  be  said  about  it,  while  yet  the  hideousness  of 
the  conception  and  display  of  a  woman's  natural  pas- 
sion for  the  man  Christ  Jesus  was  receding  from 
Arnold's  mind  before  the  exquisite  charm  and  faithful- 
ness of  the  worshipping  Magdalene,  he  became  aware 
that  in  some  special   way  he  sat  judging  and  pitying 


70  HILDA. 

her.  She  had  hardly  lifted  her  eyes  to  him  twice,  yet 
it  was  he,  intimately  he,  who  responded,  as  if  from  afar 
off,  to  the  touch  of  her  infinite  solicitude  and  abase- 
ment, the  joy  and  the  shame  of  her  love.  As  he 
watched  and  knew  his  lips  tightened  and  his  face 
paled  with  the  throb  of  his  own  renunciation,  he 
folded  his  celibate  arms  in  the  habit  of  his  brotherhood 
and  was  caught  up  into  a  knowledge  and  an  imitation 
of  how  the  spotless  Original  would   have  looked   upon  * 

a  woman  suffering  and  transported  thus.    The  poverty  I 

of  the  play  faded  out;  he  became  almost  unaware  of 
the  pinchbeck  and  the  fustian  of  Patullo's  invention 
and  its  insufferable  mixture  with  the  fabric  of  which 
every  thread  was  precious  beyond  imagination.  He 
looked  down  with  tender  patience  and  compassion 
upon  the  development  of  the  woman's  intrigue  in  the 
palace,  through  the  very  flower  of  her  crafts  and 
guiles,  to  save  him  who  had  transfigured  her  from  the 
hands  of  the  rabble  and  the  high  priests  ;  he  did  not 
even  shrink  from  the  inexpressibly  grating  note  of  the 
purified  Magdalene's  final  passionate  tendering  of  her 
personal  sacrifice  to  the  enamoured  Pilate  as  the  price  of 
His  freedom,  and  when  at  the  last  she  wept  at  His  feet, 
where  He  was  bound  waiting  for  His  cross,  and  wrapped 
them,  in  the  agony  of  her  abandonment,  in  the  hair 
of  her  head,  the  priest's  lips  almost  moved  in  words 
other  than  those  the  playwright  had  given  his  Christ 
to  say — words  that  told  her  he  knew  the  height  and  the 
depth  of  her  sacrifice  and  forgave  it, "  Neither  do  I  com- 
demn  thee  ..."  In  his  exultation  he  saw  what  it  was 
to  perform  miracles,  to  remit  sins.  The  spark  of  divin- 
ity that  was  in  him  glowed  to  a  white  heat ;  the  woman 
on  the  stage  warmed  her  hands  at  it  in  two  conscious- 


wm 


HILDA. 


71 


nesses.  She  was  stirred  through  all  her  artistic  sense  in 
a  new  and  delicious  way,  and  wakened  in  some  dormant 
part  of  her  to  a  knowledge  beautiful  and  surprising.  She 
felt  in  every  nerve  the  exquisite  quality  of  that  which 
lay  between  them,  and  it  thrilled  her  through  all  her 
own  perception  of  what  she  did,  and  all  the  applause  at 
how  she  did  it.  It  was  as  if  he,  the  priest,  was  borne 
out  upon  a  deep,  broad  current  that  made  toward 
solar  spaces,  toward  infinite  bounds,  and  as  if  she,  the 
actress,  piloted  him.  ... 

The  Sphinx  on  the  curtain — it  had  gone  down  in  the 
old  crooked  lines — again  looked  above  and  beyond 
them  all.  I  have  sometimes  fancied  a  trace  of  malig- 
nancy about  her  steady  eyeballs,  but  perhaps  that  is 
the  accident  or  the  design  of  the  scene-painter  ;  it  does 
not  show  in  photographs.  The  audience  was  dispers- 
ing a  trifle  sedately  ;  the  performance  had  been,  as 
Mrs.  Barberry  told  Mr.  Justice  Home,  interesting  but 
depressing.  "  I  hope,"  said  Alicia  to  Stephen,  fasten- 
ing the  fluffy-white  collar  of  the  wrap  he  put  round 
her,  "  that  I  needn't  be  sorry  I  asked  you  to  come.  I 
don't  quite  know.  But  she  did  redeem  it,  didn't  she? 
That  last  scene,  where  she  knows  what  they  are  doing 
to  Him " 

"  Can  you  not  be  silent  ?  "  Arnold  said,  almost  in  a 
whisper;  and  her  look  of  astonishment  showed  her 
that  there  were  tears  in  his  eyes.  He  left  the  theatre 
and  walked  light-headedly  across  Chowringhee  and 
out  into  the  starlit  empty  darkness  of  the  Maidan, 
where  presently  he  stumbled  upon  a  wooden  bench 
under  a  tree.  There,  after  a  little,  sleep  fell  upon  his 
amazement,  and  he  lay  unconscious  for  an  hour  or 
two,  while  the  breeze  stole  across  the  grass  from  the 


72 


HILDA. 


river,  and  the  masthead  lights  watched  beside  the 
city  He  woke  chilled  and  normal,  and  when  he 
reached  the  Mission  House  in  College  street  his  ser- 
vant  was  surprised  at  the  unusual  irritation  of  a  neces- 
sary  rebuke. 


MHw 


CHAPTER  VI. 


While  Alicia  Livingstone  fought  with  her  imagina- 
tion in  accounting  for  Duff  Lindsay's  absence  from 
the  theatre  on  the  first  night  of  a  notable  presentation 
by  Miss  Hilda  Howe,  he  sat  with  his  knees  crossed  on 
the  bench  furthest  back  in  the  corner  obscurest  of  the 
Salvation  Army  Headquarters  in  Bentinck  street.     It 
had  become  his  accustomed  place  ;  sitting   there   he 
had  begun  to  feel  like  the  adventurer  under  Niagara, 
it  was  the  only  spot  from  which  he  could  observe,  try 
to  understand,  and  cope  with  the  torrential  nature  of 
his  passion.     Nearer  to  the  fair  charm  of  her   pres- 
ence in  the  uncertain  flare  of  the  kerosene  lamp  and 
the  sound  of  the  big  drum,  he  grew  blind,  lost  count, 
was  carried  away.     His  persistent  refusal  of  a  better 
place  also  profited  him  in  that  it  brought  to  Ensign 
Sand  and  the  other  "officers"  the  divination  that  he 
was  one  of  those  shyly  anxious  souls  who  have  to  be 
enticed  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  with  wariness, 
and  they  made  a  great  pretence  of  not  noticing  him, 
going  on  with  the  exercises  just  as  if   he  were  not 
there,  a  consideration  which  he  was  able  richly  to  en- 
liance  when  the  plate   came   round.     After   his  first 
contribution  Mrs.  Sand  regarded  his  spiritual  interests 
with  almost  superstitious  reverence,  according  them 
the  fullest  privacy  of  which  she   was  capable.     The 
gravity  which  the  gentleman  attached  to  his  situation 


74 


HILDA.. 


was  sufficiently  testified  by  the  "  amount  ** ;  Mrs.  Sand 
never  wanted  better  evidence  than  the  amount.  Even 
Laura,  acting  doubtless  under  instructions,  seemed 
disposed  to  hold  away  from  him  in  her  prayers  and 
exhortations ;  only  a  very  occasional  allusion  passed 
her  lips  which  Duff  could  appropriate.  These,  when 
they  fell,  he  gathered  and  set  like  flowers  in  his  ten- 
(lerest  consciousness,  to  visit  and  water  them  after  the 
sun  went  down  and  for  twenty-four  hours  he  would 
not  see  her  again.  Her  intonation  went  with  them 
and  her  face,  they  lived  on  that.  They  stirred  him,  I 
mean,  least  of  all  in  the  manner  of  their  intention. 
After  the  first  quarter  of  an  hour  it  is  to  be  feared 
Lindsay  suffered  no  more  apprehensions  on  the  score 
of  emotional  hypnotism.  He  recognised  his  situation 
plainly  enough,  and  there  was  no  appeal  in  it  of  which 
the  Reverend  Stephen  Arnold  for  example  could 
properly  suspect  the  genuineness  or  the  permanence. 

On  this  Saturday  night  he  sat  through  the  meeting 
as  he  had  sat  through  other  meetings,  absorbed  in  his 
exquisite  experience,  which  he  meditated  mostly  with 
his  eyes  on  the  floor.  His  attitude  was  one  quite 
adapted  to  deceive  Ensign  Sand  ;  if  he  had  been  oc- 
cupied with  the  burden  of  his  transgressions  it  was 
one  he  might  very  well  have  fallen  into.  When  Laura 
knelt  or  sang  he  sometimes  looked  at  her,  at  other 
times  he  looked  at  the  situation  in  the  brightness  of 
her  presence  at  the  other  end  of  the  room.  She  gave 
forth  there,  for  Lindsay,  an  illumination  by  which  he 
almost  immediately  began  to  read  his  life,  and  it  was 
because  he  thought  he  had  done  this  with  accuracy 
and  intelligence  that  he  came  up  behind  her  that 
evening  when  the  meeting  was  over  as  she  followed 


i 


^, 


HILDA. 


f$ 


the  rest,  with  her  sari  drawn  over  her  head,  out  into 
the  darkness  of  Bentinck  street,  and  said  with  direct- 
ness, "  I  should  like  to  come  and  see  you.  When  may 
I  ?  Any  time  that  suits  you.  Have  you  half  an  hour 
to  spare  to-morrow  ?  " 

It  was  plain  that  she  was  tired,  and  that  the  bright- 
ness with  which  she  welcomed  his  advance  was  a  trifle 
taught  and  perfunctory.  Not  the  frankness,  though, 
or  the  touch  of  "  Now  we  are  getting  to  business," 
that  stood  somehow  in  her  expression.  She  looked 
alert  and  pleased. 

"You  would  like  to  have  a  little  talk,  wouldn't 
you?"  she  said.  Her  manner  took  Lindsay  a  trifle 
aback,  it  suggested  that  she  conferred  this  privilege  so 
freely.  "  To-morrow — let  me  see,  we  march  in  the 
morning,  and  I  have  an  open-air  at  four  in  the  after- 
noon— the  Ensign  takes  the  evening  meeting.  Yes,  I 
could  see  you  to-morrow  about  two  or  about  seven, 
after  I  get  back  from  the  Square."  It  was  not  unlike 
a  professional  appointment. 

Lindsay  considered.  "  Thanks,"  he  said,  "  I'll  come 
at  about  seven — if  you  are  sure  you  won't  be  too  ex- 
hausted to  have  me  after  such  a  day." 

He  saw  that  her  lids  as  she  raised  them  to  answer 
were  slightly  reddened  at  the  edges,  testifying  to  the 
acridity  of  Calcutta's  road  dust,  and  a  dry  crack  crept 
into  the  silver  voice  with  which  she  said  matter-of- 
factly,  "  We  are  never  too  exhausted  to  attend  to  our 
Master's  business." 

Lindsay's  face  expressed  an  instant's  hesitation,  he 
looked  gravely  the  other  way.  "And  the  address?" 
he  said. 

"Almost  next  door — we  all  live  within  bugle-call. 


;6 


HILDA. 


The  entrance  is  in  Crooked  lane.  Anybody  will  tell 
you." 

At  the  door  Ensign  Sand  was  conspicuously  wait- 
ing. Arnold  said  "  Thanks  "  again  and  passed  out — 
she  seemed  to  be  holding  it  for  him — and  picked  his 
way  over  the  gutters  to  the  shop  of  his  Chinaman  op- 
posite. From  there  he  watched  the  little  company 
issue  forth  and  turn  into  Crooked  lane,  where  the  en- 
trance was.  It  gave  him  a  sense  that  she  had  her 
part  in  this  squalor,  which  was  not  altogether  distress- 
ful in  that  it  also  localised  her  in  the  warm,  living, 
habitable  world,  and  helped  to  make  her  thinkable 
and  attainable.  Then  he  went  to  his  room  at  the 
club  and  found  there  a  note  from  Miss  Howe,  written 
apparently  to  forgive  him  in  advance,  to  say  that  she 
had  not  expected  him.  "  Friendly  creature  !  "  he  said 
as  he  turned  out  the  lamp,  and  smiled  in  the  dark  to 
think  that  already  there  was  one  who  guessed,  who 
knew. 

One  gropes  in  Crooked  lane  after  the  lights  of 
Bentinck  street  have  done  all  that  can  be  expected  of 
them.  There  are  various  things  to  avoid,  washer- 
men's donkeys  and  pariah  dogs,  unyoked  ticca- 
gharries,  heaps  of  rubbish,  perhaps  a  leprous  beggar. 
Lindsay,  when  he  had  surmounted  these,  found  him- 
self at  the  entrance  to  a  quadrangle  which  was 
positively  dark.  He  waylaid  a  sweeper  slinking  out, 
and  the  man  showed  him  where  an  open  staircase  ran 
down  against  the  wall  in  one  corner.  It  was  up  there, 
he  said,  that  the  "  tamasho-mems  *'  *  lived.  There 
were  three  tamasho-mems,  he  continued,  responding 
to  Arnold's  trivial  coin,  and  one  sahib,  but  this  was 

*  Festival-making  women. 


1 


' 


I  HILDA.  ^^ 


•y< 


not  the  time  for  the  tamasho — it  was  finished. 
Lindsay  mounted  the  first  flight  by  faith,  and  paused 
at  the  landing  to  avoid  collision  with  a  heavy  body 
descending.  He  inquired  Miss  Filbert's  whereabouts 
from  this  person,  who  providentially  lighted  a  cigar, 
disclosing  himself  a  bald  Armenian  in  tusser  silk 
trousers  and  a  dirty  shirt,  presumably,  Lindsay 
thought,  the  landlord.  At  all  events,  he  had  the 
information.  Lindsay  was  to  keep  straight  on  ;  it  was 
the  third  story,  **  and  a  lovclie  airie  flat,  too,  sir,  for 
this  part  of  the  town."  Duff  kept  straight  on  in  a 
spirit  of  caution  and  just  missed  treading  upon  the 
fattest  rat  in  the  heathen  parish  of  St.  John's.  At 
the  top  he  saw  a  light  and  hastened  ;  it  shone  from 
an  open  door  at  the  side  of  a  passage.  The  partition 
in  which  the  door  was  came  considerably  short  of  the 
ceiling,  and  from  the  top  of  it  to  the  window  opposite 
!|^  stretched  a  line  of  garments  to  dry,  of  pungent  odour 

and  infantile  pattern.  Lindsay  dared  no  further,  but 
lifted  up  his  voice  in  the  Indian  way  to  summon  a 
servant.  "  Qui  hai  !  "  *  he  called  ;  "  Qui  hai  !  " 

He  heard  somewhere  within  the  noise  of  a  chair 
pushed  back,  and  a  door  further  down  the  passage 
opened  outwards,  disclosing  Laura  Filbert  with  her 
hand  upon  the  handle.  She  made  a  supple,  graceful 
picture.  "  Good  evening,  Mr.  Lindsay,"  she  said  as 
he  advanced.  "  Won't  you  come  in?"  She  clung  to 
the  handle  until  he  had  passed  into  the  room,  then 
she  closed  the  door  after  him.  "  I  was  expecting 
you,"  she  said.  "  Mr.  Harris,  let  me  make  you 
acquainted  with  Mr.  Lindsay.  Mr.  Lindsay,  Mr. 
Harris." 

•"  Whoever  is  there ! " 


1 


78  HILDA. 

Mr.  Harris  was  sitting  sideways  on  one  of  the  three 
cane-bottomed  chairs.  He  was  a  clumsily  built 
youth,  and  he  wore  the  private's  garb  of  the  Salva- 
tion Army.  It  was  apparent  that  he  had  been  reading 
a  newspaper ;  he  had  a  displeasing  air  of  possession. 
At  Laura's  formula  he  looked  up  and  nodded  without 
amiability,  folded  his  journal  the  other  side  out  and 
returned  to  it. 

"  Please  take  a  seat,"  Laura  said,  and  Lindsay  took 
one.  He  had  a  demon  of  self-consciousness  that 
possessed  him  often,  here  he  felt  dumb.  Nor  did  he 
in  the  very  least  expect  Mr.  Harris.  He  crossed  his 
legs  in  greater  discomfort  than  he  had  dreamed  possi- 
ble, looking  at  Laura,  who  sat  down  like  a  third 
stranger,  curiously  detached  from  any  sense  of  hospi- 
tality. 

"  Mr.  Lindsay  is  anxious  about  his  soul,  Mr.  Harris," 
she  said  pleasantly.  "  I  guess  you  can  tell  him  what 
to  do  about  it  as  well  as  I  can." 

"Oh!"  Lindsay  began,  but  Mr.  Harris  had  the 
word.  "Is  he?"  said  Mr.  Harris,  without  looking 
up  from  his  paper.  "  Well,  what  I've  got  to  siy  on 
that  subject  I  say  at  the  evenin'  meetin',  which  is  a 
proper  an*  a  public  plac»  He  can  hear  it  there  any 
day  of  the  week." 

"  I  think  I  have  already  heard,"  remarked  Lindsay, 
"  what  you  have  to  say." 

"Then  that's  all  right,"  said  Mr.  Harris,  with  his 
eyes  still  upon  his  newspaper.  He  appeared  to  de- 
vour it.  Laura  looked  from  one  to  the  other  of  them 
and  fell  upon  an  exped'ent. 

"  If  you'll  excuse  me,"  she  said,  "  I'll  just  get  you 
that  bicycle  story  you  were  kind  enough  to  lend  me. 


m 


4 


HILDA.  79 

Mr.  Harris,  and  you  can  take  »^  with  you.  The 
Ensign's  got  it,"  and  she  left  t;  ,  :oom.  Lindsay 
glanced  round  and  promptly  announced  to  himself 
that  he  could  not"  come  there  again.  It  was  taking 
too  violent  an  advantage.  The  pursuit  of  an  angel  does 
not  imply  that  you  may  trap  her  in  her  corner  under 
the  Throne.  The  place  was  divided  by  a  calico  cur- 
tain, over  which  plainly  showed  the  top  of  a  mosquito 
curtain — she  slept  in  there.  On  the  walls  were  all 
tender  texts  about  loving  and  believing  and  bearing 
others*  burdens,  interspersed  with  photographs,  mostly 
of  women  with  plain  features  and  enthusiastic  eyes, 
dressed  in  some  strange  costume  of  the  Army  in 
Madras,  Ceylon,  China.  A  little  wooden  table  stood 
against  the  wall  holding  an  album,  a  Bible  and  hymn- 
books,  a  work-basket  and  an  irrelevant  Japanese  doll 
which  seemed  to  stretch  its  absurd  arms  straight 
out  In  a  gay  little  ineffectual  heathen  protest.  There 
was  another  more  embarrassing  table  ;  it  had  a  coarse 
cloth  and  was  garnisHed  with  a  loaf  and  butter-dish,  a 
plate  of  plantains  and  a  tin  of  marmalade,  knives  and 
tea-cups  for  a  meal  evidently  impending.  It  was 
atrociously,  sordidly  intimate,  with  its  core  in  Harris, 
who  when  Miss  Filbert  had  well  gone  from  the  room 
looked  up.  "  If  you're  here  on  private  business,"  he 
said  to  Lindsay,  fixing  his  eyes,  however,  on  a  point 
awkwardly  to  the  left  of  him,  "  maybe  you  ain't  aware 
that  the  Ensign  " — he  threw  his  head  back  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  next  room — "  is  the  person  to  apply  to. 
She's  in  command  here.  Captain  Filbert's  only  under 
her." 
"  Indeed  ?  "  said  Lindsay.  "  Thanks." 
"It   ain't   li)<e  it  is  in  the  Queen's  army,"  Harris 


So 


HILDA. 


volunteered,  still  searching  Lindsay's  vicinity  for  a 
point  upon  which  his  eye  could  permanently  rest, 
"where,  if  you  remember,  ensigns  are  the  smallest 
officer  we  have." 

"  The  commission  is,  I  think,  abolished,"  replied 
Lindsay,  trying  to  govern  a  deep  and  irritated  frown. 

"  Maybe  so.  This  Army  don't  pretend  to  pattern 
very  close  on  the  other — not  in  discipline,  anyhow," 
said  Mr.  Harris  with  ambiguity.  "  But  you'll  find 
Ensign  Sand  very  willing  to  do  anything  she  can  for 
you.     She's  a  hard-working  officer." 

A  sharp  wail  smote  the  air  from  a  point  suspiciously 
close  to  the  lath  and  canvas  partition  on  the  other 
side,  followed  by  hasty  bushings  and  steps  in  the  oppo- 
site direction.  It  enabled  Lindsay  to  observe  that  Mr. 
Sand  seemed  at  present  to  be  sufficiently  engaged,  at 
which  Mr.  Harris  shifted  one  heavy  limb  over  the 
other  and  lapsed  into  silence,  looking  sternly  at  an 
advertisement.  The  air  was  full  of  their  mutual  an- 
noyance, although  Duff  tried  to  feel  amused.  They 
were  raging  as  primitively,  under  the  red  flannel  shirt 
and  the  tan-coloured  waistcoat  with  white  silk  spots,  as 
two  cave-men  on  an  Early  British  coast ;  their  only 
sophistication  lay  in  Harris's  newspaper  and  Lindsay's 
idea  that  he  ought  to  find  this  person  humourous. 
Then  Laura  came  back  and  resolved  the  situation. 

"  Here  it  is,"  she  said,  handing  the  volume  to  Mr. 
Harris ;  "  we  have  all  enj.^yed  it.  Thank  you  very 
much."  There  was  in  it  the  oddest  mixture  of  the  su- 
preme feminine  and  the  superior  officer,  Harris,  as  he 
took  the  book,  had  no  alternative. 

"  Good-evening,  then.  Captain,"  said  he,  and  went 
stumbling  at  the  door. 


HILDA. 


8i 


•*  Mr.  Harris,"  said  Laura,  equably,  "  found  salvation 
about  a  month  ago.  He  is  a  very  steady  young  man 
— foreman  in  one  of  the  carriage  works  here.  He  is 
now  struggling  with  the  tobacco  habit,  and  he  often 
drops  in  in  the  evening." 

"  He  seems  to  be  a — a  member  of  the  corps,"  said 
Lindsay. 

"  He  would  be,  only  for  the  carriage  wcrks.  He 
says  he  doesn't  find  himself  strong  enough  in  grace  to 
give  up  his  situation  yet.  But  he  wears  the  uniform 
at  the  meetings  to  show  his  sympathy,  and  the  Ensign 
doesn't  think  there's  any  objection." 

Laura  was  sitting  straight  up  in  one  of  the  cane- 
bottomed  chairs,  her  sart  drawn  over  her  head,  her 
hands  folded  in  her  lap.  The  native  dress  clung  to 
her  limbs  in  sculpturable  lines,  and  her  consecrated 
ambitions  seemed  more  insistent  than  ever.  She  had 
nothing  to  do  with  anything  else,  nothing  to  do  with 
her  room  or  its  arrangements,  nothing,  Lindsay  felt 
profoundly,  to  do  with  him.  Her  personal  zeal  for 
him  seemed  to  resolve  itself,  at  the  point  of  contact, 
into  something  disappointingly  thin;  he  saw  that  she 
counted  with  him  altogether  as  a  unit  in  a  glorious  to- 
tal, and  that  he  himself  had  no  place  in  her  knowledge 
or  her  desire.  This  brought  him,  with  something  like 
a  shock,  to  a  sense  of  how  far  he  had  depended  on  her 
interest  for  his  soul's  sake  to  introduce  her  to  a  wider 
view  of  him. 

'*  But  you  have  come  to  tell  me  about  yourself,"  she 
said,  suddenly,  it  seemed  to  Lindsay,  who  was  wrapped 
in  the  contemplation  of  her  profile.  **  Well,  is  there 
any  special  stumbling-block?" 

"  There  are  some  things  I  should  certainly  like  you 


82 


HILDA. 


to  know,"  replied  Lindsay  ;  "  but  you  can't  think  how 
difficult  " he  glanced  at  the  lath  and  plaster  parti- 
tion, but  she,  to  whom  publicity  was  a  condition  salu- 
tary, if  not  essential,  to  spiritual  experience,  naturally 
had  no  interpretation  for  that. 

"  I  know  it's  sometimes  hard  to  speak,"  she  said  ; 
'•  Satan  ties  our  tongues." 

The  misunderstanding  was  almost  absurd,  but  he 
saw  only  its  difificulties,  knitting  his  brows. 

"  I  fear  you  will  find  my  story  very  strange  and  very 
mad,"  he  said.  "  I  cannot  be  sure  that  you  will  even 
listen  to  it." 

"  Oh,"  Laura  said,  simply,  **  do  not  be  afraid  !  I 
have  heard  confessions !  I  work  at  home,  you  see, 
a  good  deal  among  the  hospitals,  and — we  do  not 
ishrink,  you  know,  in  the  Army  from  things  like  that." 

"Good  God!"  he  exclaimed,  staring,  "you  don't 
think — you  don't  suppose " 

*'  Ah  !  don't  say  that !     It's  so  like  swearing." 

As  he  sat  in  helpless  anger,  trying  to  formulate 
something  intelligible,  the  curtain  parted,  and  a 
sallow  little  Eurasian  girl  of  eighteen,  also  in  the 
dress  of  tlie  Army,  came  through  from  the  bedroom 
part.  She  smiled  in  a  conscious,  meaningless  way, 
as  she  sidled  past  them.  At  the  door  her  smile 
broadened,  and  as  she  closed  it  after  her  she  gave 
them  a  little  nod. 

"  That's  my  lieutenant,"  said  Laura. 

"  The  place  is  like  a  warren,"  Lindsay  groaned. 
"  How  can  we  talk  here  ?  " 

Laura  looked  at  him  gravely,  as  one  making  a 
diagnosis.  "  Do  you  think,"  she  said,  "  a  word  of 
prayer  would  help  you  ?  " 


HILDA. 


83 


•'  No,"  said  Lindsay.  "  No,  thank  you.  What  is 
making  me  miserable,"  he  added  quietly,  **  is  the 
knowledge  that  we  are  being  overheard.  If  you  go 
into  the  next  room,  I  am  quite  certain  you  will  find 
Mrs.  Sand  listening  by  the  wall." 

"She's  gone  out  !  She  and  the  Captain  and  Miss 
De  Souza,  to  take  the  evening  meeting.  Nobody  is 
in  there  except  the  two  children,  and  they  are  asleep." 
Her  smile,  bethought, made  a  Madonna  of  her.  "  In- 
deed, wc  are  quite  alone,  you  and  I,  in  the  flat  now. 
So  please  don't  be  afraid,  Mr.  Lindsay  !  Say  what- 
ever is  in  your  heart,  and  the  mere  saying " 

"Oh,"  Lindsay  cried,  "stop!  Don't,  for  Heaven's 
sake,  look  at  me  in  that  light  any  longer.  I'm  not  peni- 
tent. I'm  not — what  do  you  call  it  ? — a  soul  under  con- 
viction. Nothing  of  the  sort."  He  waited  with  con- 
siderateness  for  this  to  have  its  efTect  upon  her ;  he 
could  not  go  on  until  he  saw  her  emerge,  gasping, 
from  the  inundation  of  it.  But  she  was  not  even 
staggered  by  it.  She  only  looked  down  at  her  folded 
hands  with  an  added  seriousness  and  a  touch  of  sor- 
row. 

"  Aren't  you  ?  "  she  said.  "  But  at  least  you  feel 
that  you  ought  to  be.  I  thought  it  had  been  accom- 
plished.    But  I  will  go  on  praying." 

"  Shall  you  be  very  angry  if  I  tell  you  that  I'd 
rather  you  didn't?  I  want  to  come  into  you"  life 
differently — sincerely." 

She  looked  at  him  with  such  absolute  biankness 
that  his  resolution  was  swiftly  overturned,  and  showed 
him  a  different  face. 

"  I  won't  tell  you  anything  about  what  I  feel  and 
what  I  want  to-night  except  this — I  find  t*  at  you  are 


f 


I 


84 


HILDA. 


influencing  all  my  thoughts  and  all  my  days  in  what 
is  to  me  a  very  new  and  a  very  happy  way.  You 
hear  as  much  as  that  often,  and  from  many  people, 
don't  you  ?  So  there  is  nothing  in  it  that  need  startle 
you  or  make  you  uncomfortable."  He  paused,  and 
she  nodded  in  a  visible  effort  to  follow  him. 

"  So  I  am  here  to-night  to  ask  you  to  let  me  do 
something  for  you  just  for  my  own  pleasure — there 
must  be  some  way  of  helping  you,  and  being  your 
friend " 

"  As  Mr.  Harris  is,"  she  interrupted.  "  I  do  influ- 
ence Mr.  Harris  for  good,  I  know.     He  says  so." 

"  Influence  me,"  he  begged,  "  in  any  way  you  like." 

"  I  will  pray  for  you,"  she  said.     "  I  promise  that." 

"  And  you  will  let  me  see  you  sometimes  ? "  he 
asked,  conceding  the  point. 

'*  If  I  thought  it  would  do  you  any  good  " — she 
looked  at  him  doubtfully,  clasping  and  unclasping  her 
hands — **  I  will  see ;  I  will  ask  for  guidance.  Perhaps 
it  is  one  of  His  own  appointed  ways.  If  you  have  no 
objection,  I  will  give  you  this  little  book,  Almost 
Persuaded.  I  am  sure  you  are  almost  persuaded. 
Above  all,  I  hope  you  will  go  on  coming  to  the 
meetings." 

And  in  the  course  of  the  next  two  or  three  moments 
Lindsay  found  himself,  somewhat  to  his  astonishment, 
again  in  the  night  of  the  staircase,  dismissed  exactly 
as  Mr.  Harris  had  been,  by  the  agency  of  a  printed 
volume.  Only  in  his  case  a  figure  of  much  angelic 
beauty  stood  at  the  top,  holding  a  patent  kerosene 
lamp  high  to  illumine  his  way.  He  refrained  from 
looking  back  lest  she  should  see  something  too 
human  in  his  face  and  vanish,  leaving  him  in  darkness 
which  would  be  indeed  impenetrable. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


There  was  a  panic  in  Dhurrumtolla;  a  "ticca- 
gharry  " — the  shabby  oblong  box  on  wheels,  dignified 
in  municipal  regulations  as  a  hackney  carriage — was 
running  away.  Coolie  mothers  dragged  naked  chil- 
dren up  on  the  pavement  with  angry  screams ;  driv- 
ers of  ox-carts  dug  their  lean  beasts  in  the  side  and 
turned  out  of  the  way  almost  at  a  trot;  only  the 
tram-car  held  on  its  course  in  conscious  invincibility. 
A  pariah  tore  along  beside  the  vehicle  barking;  crows 
flew  up  from  the  dung  in  the  road  by  half-dozens,  pro- 
testing shrilly ;  a  pedlar  of  blue  bead  necklaces  just 
escaped  being  knocked  down.  Little  groups  of  ba- 
boos*  and  bunniasf  stood  looking  after,  laughing  and 
speculating ;  a  native  policeman,  staring  also,  gave 
them  sharp  orders  to  disperse,  and  they  said  to  him, 
"  Peace,  brother."  To  each  other  they  said,  "  Behold, 
the  driver  is  a  *mut-wallah,*  "  (or  drunken  person); 
and  presently,  as  the  thing  whirled  further  up  the 
emptied  perspective,  "  Lo  !  the  syce  has  fallen."  The 
driver  was  certainly  very  drunk;  his  whip  circled  per- 
petually above  his  head  ;  the  syce  clinging  behind  was 
stiff  with  terror,  and  fell  off  like  a  bundle  of  rags.  In- 
side, Hilda  Howe,  with  a  hand  in  the  strap  at  each 
side  and  her  feet  against    the  opposite  seat,  swayed 


•Clerks. 


t  Small  dealers. 


86 


HILDA. 


violently,  and  waited  for  what  might  happen,  breath- 
ing  short.     Whenever  the  gharry  thrashed   over  the 
tram-lines,  she  closed  her  eyes.     There   was  a  point 
near  Cornwallis  street  where  she  saw  the  off  front  wheel 
make    sickeningly  queer    revolutions ;    and    another, 
electrically  close,  when  two  tossing  roan  heads  with 
pink   noses   appeared   in  a   gate  to  the  left,  heading 
smartly  out,  all  unawares,  at  precisely  right  angles  to 
her  own  derelict  equipage.     That  was  the  juncture  of 
the  Reverend  Stephen  Arnold's  interference,  walking 
and  discussing  with  Amiruddin  Khan,  as  he  was,  the 
comparative   benefits  of  Catholic  and   Mohammedan 
fasting.     It  would  be  easy  to  magnify  what  Stephen 
did  in  that  interruption  of  the  considerate  hearing  he 
was  giving  to  Amiruddin.     The  ticca-gharry  ponies 
were  almost  spent,    and  any  resolute  hand  could  have 
impelled  them  away  from  the  carriage-pole  with  which 
the  roans  threatened  to  impale  their  wretched  sides. 
The  front  wheel,  however,  made  him  heroic,  going  off 
at  a  tangent  into  a  cloth-merchant's  shop,  and  precipi- 
tating a  clash  while  he  still  clung  to  the  reins.     The 
door  flew   open   on   the    under  side   and    Hilda  fell 
through,  grasping  at  the  dust  of  the  road  ;  while  the 
driver,  discovering  that  his  seat  was  no  longer  horizon- 
tal, entered  suddenly  upon  sobriety  and   clamoured 
with  tears  that  the  cloth-merchant  should  restore  his 
wheel — was  he  not  a  poor  man  ?     Hilda,  struggling 
with  her  hat-pins,  felt  her  dress  brushed  by  various  lean 
hands  of  the  bazaar,  and  observed  herself  the  central 
figure  in  yet  another  situation.     When  she  was  in  a 
condition  to  see,  she  saw  Arnold  soothing  the  ponies ; 
Amiruddin,  before  the  possibility  of  vague  police  com- 
plication, having  slipped  away.    Stephen  had  believed 


HILDA. 


«; 


the  gharry  empty.  The  sight  of  her,  in  her  disordered 
draperies,  was  a  revelation  and  a  reproach. 

"  Is  it  possible  ?  "  he  exclaimed,  and  was  beside  her. 
"  You  are  not  hurt  ?  " 

"  Only  scraped,  thanks.  I  am  lucky  to  get  off  with 
this."  She  held  up  her  right  palm,  broadly  abraded 
round  the  base,  where  her  hand  had  struck  the  road. 
Arnold  took  it  delicately  in  his  own  thin  fingers  to 
examine  it ;  an  infinity  of  contrast  rested  in  the  touch. 
He  looked  at  it  with  anxiety  so  obviously  deep  and 
troubled  that  Hilda  silently  smiled.  She  who  had 
been  battered,  as  she  said,  twice  round  the  world, 
found  it  disproportionate. 

'*  It's  the  merest  scratch,"  she  said,  grave  again  to 
meet  his  glance. 

"  Indeed,  I  fear  not.**  The  priest  made  a  solicitous 
bandage  with  his  handkerchief,  while  the  circle  about 
them  solidified.  "  It  is  quite  unpleasantly  deep. 
You  must  let  me  take  you  at  once  to  the  nearest 
chemist's  and  get  it  properly  washed  and  dressed,  or  it 
may  give  you  a  vast  amount  of  trouble — but  I  am 
walking." 

"  I  will  walk,  too,"  Hilda  said,  readily.  "  I  should 
prefer  it,  truly."  With  her  undamaged  hand  she  pro- 
duced a  rupee  from  her  pocket,  where  a  few  coins 
chinked  casually,  looked  at  it,  and  groped  for  another. 
'•  I  really  can't  afford  any  more,"  she  said.  "  He  can 
get  his  wheel  mended  with  that,  can't  he  ?  " 

"  It  is  three  times  his  fare,"  Arnold  said,  austerely, 
"  and  he  deserved  nothing — but  a  fine,  perhaps."  The 
man  was  suppliant  before  them,  cringing,  salaaming, 
holding  joined  palms  open.  Hilda  lifted  her  head  and 
looked  over  the  shoulders  of  the  little  rabble,  where 


1 


88  HILDA. 

the  sun  stood  golden  upon  the  roadside  and  two 
naked  children  played  with  a  torn  pink  kite.  Some- 
thing seemed  to  gather  into  her  eyes  as  she  looked, 
and  when  she  fixed  them  softly  upon  Arnold,  to  speak, 

II  as  it  had  spoken  before. 

Jl  "  Ah,"  she  said.     "  Our  deserts." 

It  was  the  merest  echo  and  she  had  done  it  on 
purpose,  but  he  could  not  know  that,  and  as  she  dropped 
the  rupees  into  the  craving  hands  and  turned  and 
walked  away  with  him,  he  had  nothing  to  say.  There 
was  nothing,  perhaps,  that  he  wanted  to  talk  of  more 
than  of  his  experience  at  the  theatre ;  he  longed  to 
have  it  simplified  and  explained ;  yet  in  that  space  of 
her  two  words  the  impossibility  of  mentioning  it  had 
sprung  at  him  and  overcome  him.  He  hoped,  with 
instant  fervour,  that  she  would  refrain  from  any 
allusion  to  The  Offence  of  Galilee.  And  for  the 
time  being  she  did  refrain.  She  said,  instead,  that  her 
hand  was  smarting  absurdly  already,  and  did  Arnold 
suppose  the  chemist  would  use  a  carbolic  lotion? 
Stephen,  with  a  guarded  look,  said  very  possibly  not 
but  one  never  knew  ;  and  Hilda,  thinking  of  the  far-off 
day  when  the  little  girl  of  her  was  brought  tactfully 
to  disagreeable  necessities,  covered  a  preposterous 
,     impulse  to  cry  with  another  smile, 

A  thudding  of  bare  feet  overtook  them.  It  was  the 
syce,  with  his  arms  full  of  thin  paper  bags,  the  kind 
that  hold  cheap  millinery.  "  Oh,  the  good  man ! " 
Hilda  exclaimed,  "My  parcels!"  and  looked  on 
equably,  while  Arnold  took  them  by  their  puckered 
ends.  "I  have  been  buying  gold  lace  and  things  from 
Chunder  Dutt  for  a  costume,"  she  exclaimed.  The 
bags  dangled    helplessly   from   Arnold's  fingers ;    he 


i 


!:; 


HILDA. 


■9 


I 


looked  very  much  aware  of  them.  ••  Let  me  carry  at 
least  one,"  she  begged.  "  I  can  perfectly  with  my 
parasol  hand ;  "  but  he  refused  her  even  one.  "  If  I 
may  be  permitted  to  take  the  responsibility,"  he  said, 
happily,  and  she  rejoined,  "  Oh,  I  would  trust  you 
with  things  more  fragile."  At  which,  such  is  the  dis- 
cipline  of  these  orders,  he  looked  steadily  in  front  of 
him  and  seemed  deaf  with  modesty. 

"But  are  you  sure,"  said  Hilda,  suddenly  con- 
siderate, "  that  it  looks  well  ?  " 

•'  Is  the  gold  lace,  then,  so  very  meretricious  ?  " 

**  It  goes  doubtfully  with  your  cloth,"  she  laughed, 
and  instantly  looked  stricken  with  the  conviction  that 
she  might  better  have  said  something  else.  But 
Arnold  appeared  to  take  it  simply  and  to  see  no  gibe 
in  it,  only  a  pleasant  commonplace. 

"  It  might  look  queer  in  Chowringhee,"  he  said, 
"  but  this  is  not  a  censorious  public."  Then,  as  if  to 
palliate  the  word,  he  added,  "  They  will  think  me  no 
more  mad  to  carry  paper  bags  than  to  carry  myself, 
when  it  is  plain  that  I  might  ride — and  they  see  me 
doing  that  every  day." 

All  the  same  the  paper  bags  swinging  beside  the 
girdled  black  skirt  did  impart  a  touch  of  comedy, 
which  was  in  a  way  a  pity,  since  humour  goes  so  far  to 
destroy  the  picturesque.  Hilda  without  the  paper 
bags  would  have  been  vastly  enough  for  contrast. 
She  walked — one  is  inclined  to  dwell  upon  her  steps 
and  face  the  risk  of  being  unintelligible — in  a  wide- 
sleeved  gown  of  peach-coloured  silk,  rather  frayed  at 
the  seams,  a  trifle  spent  in  vulnerable  places,  sur- 
mounted by  an  extravagant  collar  and  a  Paris  hat. 
The   dress  was  of  artistic    intention,   inexpensively 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


1.0 


I.I 


1.25 


2.5 


•"  iiM 

«•'-■  Itt    1 2.2 
12.0 


II 


LA.  11 1.6 


PhotoeraDhic 


iV 


v 


%- 


<f 


# 


'•e^^  ^' 


&? 


^ 


90 


HILDA. 


carried  out,  the  hat  had  an  accomplished  chic,  it 
had  fallen  to  her  in  the  wreck  and  ruin  of  a  too 
ambitious  draper  of  Coolgardie.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
it  was  the  only  one  she  had.  The  wide  sleeves  ended 
a  little  below  the  elbow,  and  she  carried  in  compen- 
sation a  pair  of  long  suMe  gloves,  a  compromise 
which  only  occasionally  discovered  itself  buttonless, 
and  a  most  expensive  umbrella,  the  tribute  of  a  gen- 
tleman in  that  line  of  business  in  Cape  Town,  whose 
standing  advertisement  is  now  her  note  of  appreciation. 
Arnold  in  his  unvarying  gait  paced  beside  her;  he 
naturally  shrank,  so  close  to  her  opulence,  into  some- 
thing less  impressive  than  he  was  ;  a  mere  intelligence 
he  looked,  in  a  quaint  uniform,  with  his  long  lip  drawn 
down  and  pursed  a  little  in  /lis  accomplishment  of 
duty,  and  his  eyes  steadily  in  front  of  him.  Hilda's 
lambent  observation  was  everywhere  but  most  of  all 
on  him  ;  a  fleck  of  the  dust  from  the  road  still  lay 
upon  the  warm  bloom  of  her  cheek,  a  perpetual  happy 
curve  clung  about  her  mouth.  So  they  passed  in 
streets  of  the  thronging  people,  where  yards  of  new 
dyed  cotton,  purple  and  yellow,  stretched  drying  in 
the  sun,  where  a  busy  tom-tom  called  the  pious  to  leave 
coppers  before  a  blood-red,  goldened-tongued  Kali, 
half  visible  through  the  door  of  a  mud  hut — where  all 
the  dealers  in  brass  dishes  and  glass  armlets,  nine-yard 
turban  cloths,  blue  and  gold,  and  silver  gilt  stands  for 
the  comfortable  hubble-bubble,  squatted  in  line  upon 
their  thresholds  and  accepted  them  with  indifference. 
So  they  passed,  worthy  of  a  glance  from  that 
divinity  who  shapes  our  ends. 

They  talked  of  the  accident.     "  You   stopped  the 
horses,  didn't  you  ?  "  Hilda  said,  and  the  speculation 


HILDA.  91 

in  her  eyes  was  concerned  with  the  extent  to  which  a 
muscular  system  might  dwindle,  in  that  climate,  under 
sacerdotal  robes  worn  every  day. 

"  I  told  them  to  stop,  poor  things,"  Arnold  said  ; 
"  they  had  hardly  to  be  persuaded." 

"  But  you  didn't  save  my  life  or  anything  like  that, 
did  you  ?  "  she  adventured,  like  a  vagrant  in  the  sun. 
The  blood  was  warm  in  her.  She  did  not  weigh  her 
words.  "  I  shouldn't  like  having  my  life  saved.  The 
necessity  for  feeling  such  a  vast  emotion — I  shouldn't 
know  how  to  cope  with  it." 

"  I  will  claim  to  have  saved  your  other  hand,"  he 
smiled.     "  You  will  be  quite  grateful  enough  for  that." 

She  noted  that  he  did  not  hasten,  behind  pyramidal 
blushes,  into  the  shelter  of  a  general  disavowal.  The 
cassock  seemed  to  cover  an  obligation  to  acknowledge 
things. 

"  I  see,"  she  said,  veer .ig  round.  "You  are  quite 
right  to  circumscribe  ♦^e.  There  is  nothing  so  boring 
as  the  gratitude  that  will  out.  It  is  only  the  absence 
of  it,  too  plainly  expressed,  that  is  unpleasant.  But 
you  won't  find  that  in  me  either."  She  gave  him  a 
smile  as  she  lowered  her  parasol  to  turn  into  the  shop 
of  Lahiri  Dey,  licensed  to  sell  European  drugs,  that 
promised,  infinite  possibilities  of  friendship  ;  and  he, 
following,  took  pleased  and  careful  possession  of  it. 

An  hour  later,  as  they  approached  No.  3,  Lai  Be- 
hari's  Lane,  Miss  Howe  looked  pale,  which  is  not  sur- 
prising, since  they  had  walked  and  talked  all  the  way. 
Their  talk  was  a  little  strenuous,  too ;  it  was  as  if  they 
had  fallen  upon  an  opportunity,  and  mutually,  con- 
sciously, made  the  most  of  it. 

"You  must  have  some  tea  immediately,"  Arnold 


92 


HILDA. 


said,  before  the  battered  urns  and  the  dusty  crotons 
of  her  dwelling. 

"  A  little  whiskey  and  soda,  I  think.  And  you  will 
come  up,  please,  and  have  some,  too.     You  must." 

"  Thanks,"  he  said,  looking  at  his  watch.  "  If  I 
do—" 

**  You'll  have  the  soda  without  the  whiskey !  All 
right !  "  she  laughed,  and  led  the  way. 

"  This  is  vicious  indulgence,"  Arnold  said  of  his 
beverage,  sitting  under  the  inverted  Japanese  um- 
brellas. "  I  haven't  been  pitched  out  of  a  ticca- 
gharry." 

It  is  doubtful  whether  the  indulgence  was  altogether 
in  the  soda,  which  is,  after  all,  ascetic  in  its  quality, 
and  only  suitably  effervescent,  like  ecclesiastical  hu- 
mour. It  may  very  probably  be  that  there  was  no 
indulgence ;  indeed  one  is  convinced  that  the  word, 
like  so  many  words,  says  too  much.  The  springs  of 
Arnold's  chair  were  bursting  through  the  bottom,  and 
there  were  stains  on  its  faded  chintz-arms,  but  it  was 
comfortable,  and  he  leaned  back  in  it,  looking  up  at 
the  paper  umbrellas.  You  know  the  room  ;  I  took 
you  into  it  with  Duff  Lindsay,  who  did  not  come 
there  from  rigidities  and  rituals,  and  who  had  a  qual- 
ified pleasure  in  it.  But  there  were  lines  in  the  folds 
of  the  flowered  window  curtains  dragging  half  a  yard 
upon  the  floor  which  seemed  to  disband  Arnold's 
spirit,  and  a  twinkle  in  the  blue  bead  of  a  bamboo 
screen  where  the  light  came  through  that  released  it 
altogether.  The  shabby,  violent-coloured  place  en- 
compassed him  like  an  easy  garment,  and  the  lady, 
with  her  feet  tucked  up  in  a  sofa  and  a  cushion  under 
her  tumbled  head,  was  an  unembarrassing  invitation 


HILDA. 


93 


to  the  kind  of  happy  things  he  had  not  said  for  years. 

1  hey  sat  in  the  coolness  of  the  room  for  half  an  hour 

and  then,  after  a  little  pause,  Hilda  said  suddenly,       ' 

"  I  am  glad  you  saw  me  in  The  Offence  of  Galilee  on 
Saturday  night.     We  shall  not  play  it  again." 

"  It  has  been  withdrawn  ?  " 

"Yes.  The  rights,  you  know,  really  belong  to  Mr. 
iJradley ;  and  he  can't  endure  his  part." 

"  Is  there  no  one  else  to—" 

tolfher°^''Th,f  '"''°"!.  '■''•      ^'  ^'"^^^"y  P'^y 
together.      This  was  inadvertent,  but  Stephen   had 

no  reason  to  imagine  that  she  contracted  her  eyebrows 
r^eT'^'  '"""'°"-     "I^'-natrocioJpiec:- 

"Is  it?"  he  said,  absently,  and  then,  "Yes,  it  is  an 
atrocious  piece.  But  I  am  gi.d,  too,  that  I  saw  you  " 
He  looked  away  from    her,   reddening  deeply   and 

f  m°e.  "'•  .  """."'"'^  '^"  "P°"  "'•■"  ^^-".  ^^  '-d'e  her 
hurried      She  only   half  rose  to   give  him  her  un- 

a;i"thouS?;ir  ^'^"  '^ '''' '°"' '''  -"' '-' 


I 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

"  I  HAVE  outstayed  all  the  rest,"  Lindsay  said,  with 
his  hat  and  stick  in  his  hand,  in  Alicia  Livingstone's 
drawing-room,  "  because  I  want  particularly  to  talk 
to  you.  They  have  left  me  precious  little  time,"  he 
added,  glancing  at  his  watch. 

She  had  wondered  when  he  came,  early  in  the  formal 
Sunday  noon  hour  for  men's  calls,  since  he  had  more 
casual  privileges ;  and  wondered  more  when  he  sat  on 
with  composure,  as  one  who  is  master  of  the  situation, 
while  Major-Generals  and  Deputy  Secretaries  came 
and  went.  There  was  a  mist  in  her  brain  as  she  talked 
to  the  Major-Generals  and  Deputy  Secretaries — it  did 
not  in  the  least  obscure  what  she  found  to  say — and  in 
the  midst  of  it  the  formless  idea  that  he  must  wish  to 
attach  a  special  importance  to  his  visit.  This  took 
shape  and  line  when  they  were  alone,  and  he  spoke  of 
outsitting  the  others.  It  impelled  her  to  walk  to  the 
window  and  open  it.  "  You  might  stay  to  lunch,"  she 
said,  addressing  a  pair  of  crows  in  altercation  on  the 
verandah. 

"  There  is  nearly  half-an-hour  before  lunch,"  he 
said.  "  Can  I  convince  you,  in  that  time,  I  wonder, 
that  I  am  not  an  absolute  fool." 

Alicia  turned  and  came  back  to  her  sofa.  She  may 
have  had  a  prevision  of  the  need  of  support.  "  I 
hardly  think,"  she  said,  drawing  the  long  breath  with 


1 


HILDA. 


9S 


which  we  try  to  subdue  a  tempest  within,  "that  it 
would  take  so  long."  She  tried  to  look  at  him,  but 
her  eyes  would  not  carry  above  the  violets  in  his  but- 
ton-hole. 

"  I've  had  a  supreme  experience,"  he  said,  "  very 
strange  and  very  lovely.  I  am  living  in  it,  moving  in 
it,  speaking  in  it,"  he  added  quickly,  watching  her 
face  ;  "  so  don't,  for  God's  sake,  touch  it  roughly." 

She  lifted  her  hand  in  nervous,  involuntary  depreca- 
tion. "  Why  should  you  suppose  I  would  touch  it 
roughly  ?  "  There  was  that  in  her  voice  which  cried 
out  that  she  would  rather  not  touch  it  at  all ;  but 
Lindsay,  on  the  brink  of  his  confidence,  could  not 
suppose  it — did  not  hear  it.     He  knew  her  so  well. 

"  A  great  many  people  will,"  he  said.  "  I  can't  bear 
the  thought  of  their  fingers.  That  is  one  reason  that 
brings  me  to  you." 

She  faced  him  fully  at  this ;  her  eyelids  quivered, 
but  she  looked  straight  at  him.  It  nerved  her  to  be 
brought  into  his  equation,  even  in  the  form  which 
should  finally  be  eliminated.     She  contrived  a  smile. 

"  I  believe  you  know  already,"  Lindsay  cried. 

"  I  have  heard  something.  Don't  be  alarmed — not 
from  people,  from  Miss  Howe." 

"  Wonderful  woman  !     I  haven't  told  her." 

"  Is  that  always  necessary  ?  She  has  intuitions. 
In  this  case,"  Alicia  went  on,  with  immense  courage, 
"  I  didn't  believe  them." 

"  Why  ? "  he  asked,  enjoyingly.  Anything  to 
handle  his  delight — he  would  even  submit  it  to 
analysis. 

She  hesitated — her  business  was  in  great  waters, 
the  next  instant  might  engulf  her.    "  It's  so  curiously 


1  I 

*  t 


'  I 


96  HILDA. 

unlike  you,"  she  faltered.  "  If  she  had  been  a  duchess 
— a  very  exquisite  person,  or  somebody  very  clever — 
remember  I  haven't  seen  her." 

"You  haven't,  so  I  must  forgive  you  invidious 
comparisons."  Lindsay  visaged  the  words  with  a 
smile,  but  they  had  an  articulated  hardness. 

Alicia  raised  her  eyebrows. 

*'  What  do  you  expect  one  to  imagine  ?  "  she  asked, 
with  quietness. 

"  A  miracle,"  he  said,  sombrely. 

"  Ah,  that's  difficult !  " 

There  was  silence  for  a  moment  between  them, 
then  she  added,  perversely, 

"  And,  you  know,  faith  is  not  what  it  was." 

Duff  sat  biting  his  lips.  Her  dryness  irritated 
him.  He  was  accustomed  to  find  in  her  fields  of 
delicately  blooming  enthusiasms,  and  running  water- 
courses where  his  satisfactions  were  ever  reflected. 
Suddenly  she  seemed  to  emerge  to  her  own  con- 
sciousness, upon  a  summit  from  which  she  could  look 
down  upon  the  turmoil  in  herself  and  beyond  it,  to 
where  he  stood. 

"Don't  make  a  mistake,"  she  said,  "don't."  She 
thrust  her  hand  for  a  fraction  of  an  instant  toward 
him,  and  then  swiftly  withdrew  it,  gathering  herself 
together  to  meet  what  he  might  say. 

What  he  did  say  was  simple,  and  easy  to  hear. 
"  That's  what  everybody  will  tell  me ;  but  I  thought 
you  might  understand."  He  tapped  the  toe  of  his 
boot  with  his  stick  as  if  he  counted  the  strokes.  She 
looked  down  and  counted  them  too. 

"  Then  you  won't  help  me  to  marry  her,"  he  said 
definitely,  at  last. 


HILDA.  97 

"  What  could  I  do ? "  She  twisted  her  sappi  ..e 
ring.     "  Ask  somebody  else." 

"  Don't  expect  me  to  believe  there  is  nothing  you 
could  do.  Go  to  her  as  my  friend.  It  isn't  such  a 
monstrous  thing  to  ask.  Tell  her  any  good  you  know 
of  me.  At  present  her  imagination  paints  me  in  all 
the  lurid  colours  of  the  lost." 

The  face  she  turned  upon  him  was  all  little  sharp 
white  angles,  and  the  cloud  of  fair  hair  above  her 
temples  stood  out  stiffly,  suggesting  Celine  and  the 
curling  tongs.  She  did  not  lose  her  elegance ;  the 
poise  of  her  chin  and  shoulders  was  quite  perfect,  but 
he  thought  she  looked  too  amusedly  at  his  difficulty. 
Her  negative,  too,  was  more  unsympathetic  than  he 
had  any  reason  to  expect. 

"No,"  she  said;  "it  must  be  somebody  else. 
Don't  ask  me.  I  should  become  involved — I  might 
do  harm."  She  had  surmounted  her  emotion ;  she 
was  able  to  look  at  the  matter  with  surprising  clear- 
ness and  decision.     "  I  should  do  harm,"  she  repeated. 

"  You  don't  count  with  her  effect  on  you." 

"You  can't  possibly  imagine  her  effect  on  me. 
I'm  not  a  man." 

"  But  won't  you  take  anything — about  her — from 
me  ?  You  know  I'm  really  not  a  fool — not  even  very 
impressionable." 

"Oh,  no!"  she  said  impatiently,  "no— of  course 
not." 

"Pray,  why?" 

"There  are  other  things  to  reckon  with."  She 
looked  coldly  beyond  him  out  of  the  window.  "  A 
man's  intelligence  when  he  is  in  love — how  far  can  one 
count  on  it  ?  " 


i 


i 


98 


HILDA. 


There  was  nothing  but  silence  for  that  or  perhaps 
the  murmured  "  Oh,  I  don't  agree,"  with  which  Lind- 
say met  it.  He  rode  down  her  logic  with  a  simple 
appeal.  **  Then  after  all,"  he  said,  **  you're  not  my 
friend." 

It  goaded  her  into  something  like  an  impertinence. 
"  After  you  have  married  her,"  she  said,  "  you'll  see." 

•'  You  will  be  hers  then,"  he  declared. 

"  I  will  be  yours."  Her  eyes  leaped  along  the  pros- 
pect and  rested  on  a  brass-studded  Tartar  shield  at  the 
other  end  of  the  room. 

*'  And  I  thought  you  broad  in  these  views,"  Lindsay 
said,  glancing  at  her  curiously.  Her  opportunity  for 
defense  was  curtailed  by  a  heavy  step  in  the  hall,  and 
the  lifted  portiere  disclosed  Surgeon-Major  Living- 
stone, looking  warm.  He,  whose  other  name  was  the 
soul  of  hospitality,  made  a  profound  and  feeling  remon- 
strance against  Lindsay's  going  before  tiffin,  though 
Alicia,  doing  something  to  a  bowl  of  nasturtiums,  did 
not  hear  it.  Not  that  her  added  protest  would  have 
detained  Lindsay,  who  took  his  perturbations  away 
with  him  as  quickly  as  might  be.  Alicia  saw  the 
cloud  upon  him  as  he  shook  hands  with  her,  and  found 
it  but  slightly  consoling  to  reflect  that  his  sun  would 
without  doubt  re-emerge  in  all  effulgence  on  the 
other  side  of  the  door. 


;l 


CHAPTER  IX. 


That  same  Sunday  Alicia  had  been  able  to  say  to 
Lindsay  about  Hilda  Howe,  "  We  have  not  stood 
still — we  know  each  other  well  now,"  and  when  he 
commented  with  some  reserve  upon  this,  to  follow  it 
up.  "  But  these  things  have  so  little  to  do  with  mere 
length  of  time  or  numb^jr  of  opportunities,"  she  de- 
clared.    "  One  springs  at  some  people." 

A  Major-General,  interrupting,  said  he  wished  he 
had  the  chance ;  and  they  talked  about  something 
else.  But  perhaps  this  is  enough  to  explain  a  note 
which  went  by  a  messenger  from  the  Livingstones* 
pillared  palace  in  Middleton  street  to  No.  3,  La  Be- 
hari's  Lane  on  Monday  morning.  It  was  a  short  note, 
making  a  definite  demand  with  an  absence  of  colour 
and  softness  and  emotion  which  was  almost  elaborate. 
Hilda,  at  breakfast,  tore  off  the  blank  half  sheet,  and 
wrote  in  pencil — 

"  I  think  I  can  arrange  to  get  her  here  about  five 
this  afternoon.  No  rehearsal — they're  doing  some- 
thing to  the  gas-pipes  at  the  theatre,  so  you  will  find 
me,  anyway.     And  I'll  be  delighted  to  see  you." 

She  twisted  it  up  and  addressed  it,  reconsidered 
that,  and  made  the  scrap  more  secure  in  a  yellow  en- 
velope. It  had  an  embossed  post-ofifice  stamp,  which 
she  sacrificed  with  resignation.  Then  she  went  back 
to  an  extremely    uninteresting  vegetable  curry,  with 


I 


100  HILDA. 

the  reflection,  "  Can  she  possibly  imagine  that  one 
doesn't  see  it  yet  ?  ** 

Alicia  came  before  five.  She  brought  a  novel  of 
Gissing's,  in  order  apparently  that  they  might  without 
fail  talk  about  Gissing.  Hilda  was  agreeable  ;  she 
would  talk  about  Gissing,  or  about  anything,  tipped 
on  the  edge  of  her  bed — Alicia  had  surmounted  that 
degree  of  intimacy  at  a  bound  by  the  declaration  that 
she  could  no  longer  endure  the  blue  umbrellas — and 
clasping  one  knee,  with  an  uncertain  tenure  of  a 
chipped  bronze  slipper  deprived  of  its  heel.  Wonder- 
ful tusser  silk  draperies  fell  about  her,  with  ink-spots 
on  the  sleeves  ;  her  hair  was  magnificent. 

"It's  so  curious  to  me,"  she  was  saying  of  the  novel, 
j  '*  that  any  one  should  learn  all  that  life  as  you  do,  at  a 

I  distance,  in  a  book.     It's  like   looking  at   it  through 

the  little  end  of  an  opera-glass/' 
I  "  I  fancy  that  the  most  desirable  way,"  said  Alicia, 

glancing  at  the  door. 
I  "  Don't  you  believe  it.    The  best  way  is  to  come 

I  out  of  it,  to  grow  out  of  it.     Then  all  the  rest  has  the 

charm  of  novelty  and  the  value  of  contrast,  and  the 
distinction  of  being  the  best.  You,  poor  dear,  were 
born  an  artificial  flower  in  a  cardboard  box.  But  you 
couldn't  help  it." 

"  Everybody  doesn't  grow  out  of  it."    The  concen- 
tration in  Alicia's  eyes  returned  again  with  vacillating 
wings. 
i  "  She  can't  be  here  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  yet.'* 

The  slipper  dropped  at  this  point,  and  Hilda  stooped 
to  put  it  on  again.  She  kept  her  foot  in  her  hands 
and  regarded  it  pensively. 

"  Shoes  are  the  one  thing  one  shouldn't  buy  in  the 


I 


1 

I 


HILDA. 


lOI 


"At    all    events,   ready- 
■**     Alicia  ended  abruptly 


Are  you   quite  sure  he  wants  to 


native   quarter,"  she  said; 
made." 

"  You  have  an  audacity — 
in  a  wan  smile. 

"Haven't    I? 
marry  her  ?  " 

"  I  know  it." 

"From  him?" 

"  From  him." 

"Oh" — Hilda  deliberated  a  moment,  nursing  her 
slipper — "  Really  ?    Well,  we  can't  let  that  happen." 

"  Why  not  ?  " 

"You  have  a  hardihood!  Is  no  reason  plain  to 
you  ?     Don't  you  see  anything?  " 

Alicia  smiled  again  painfully,  as  if  against  a  tension 
of  her  lips.  "  I  see  only  one  thing  that  matters — he 
wants  it,"  she  said. 

"  And  won't  be  happy  till  he  gets  it  ?  Rubbish,  my 
dear!  We  are  an  intolerably  self-sacrificing  sex." 
Hilda  felt  around  for  pillows,  and  stretched  her  length 
along  the  bed.  "  They've  taught  us  well,  the  men ;  it's 
a  blood  disease  now,  running  everywhere  in  the  female 
line.  You  may  be  sure  it  was  a  barbarian  princess 
that  hesitated  between  the  lady  and  the  tiger.  A 
civilised  one  would  have  introduced  the  lady  and 
given  her  a  dot^  and  retired  to  the  nearest  convent. 
Bah  !  It's  a  deformity,  like  the  dachshund's  legs." 

Alicia  looked  as  if  this  would  be  a  little  troublesome, 
and  not  quite  worth  while  to  follow. 

"  The  happiness  of  his  whole  life  is  involved,"  she 
said,  simply. 

"  Oh  dear  yes — the  old  story  !  And  what  about  the 
happiness  of  yours  ?    Do  you  imagine  it's  laudable, 


I 

It 


ft 


102 


HILDA. 


!i 


»■  ,ii 


admirable,  this  attitude  ?  Do  you  see  yourself  in  it 
with  pleasure  ?  Have  you  got  a  sacred  satisfaction  of 
self-praise?" 

Contempt  accumulated  in  Miss  Howe's  voice  and 
sat  in  her  eyes.  To  mark  her  climax,  she  kicked  her 
slipper  over  the  end  of  the  bed. 

"  It  is  idiotic — it's  disgusting,"  she  said. 

Alicia  caught  a  flash  from  her.  "  My  attitude ! " 
she  cried.  '*  What  in  the  world  do  you  mean  ?  Do 
you  always  think  in  poses  ?  I  take  no  attitude.  I  care 
for  him,  and  in  that  proportion  I  intend  that  he  shall 
have  what  he  wants — so  far  as  I  can  help  him  to  it. 
You  have  never  cared  for  anybody — what  do  you 
know  about  it  ?  " 

Hilda  took  a  calm,  unprejudiced  view  of  the  ceiling. 
"  I  assure  you  I'm  not  an  angel,"  she  cried.  "  Haven't 
I  cared  ?    Several  times." 

"  Not  really — not  lastingly." 

"  I  don't  know  about  really ;  certainly  not  lastingly. 
I've  never  thought  the  men  should  have  a  monopoly 
of  nomadic  susceptibilities.  They  entail  the  prettiest 
experiences." 

**  Of  course,  in  your  profession " 

"  Don't  be  nasty,  sweet  lady.  My  affections  have 
never  taken  the  opportunities  of  our  profession.  They 
haven't  even  carried  me  into  matrimony,  though  I 
remember  once,  at  Sydney,  they  brought  me  to  the 
brink.  Quelle  escape  !  We  must  contrive  one  like  it 
for  Duff  Lindsay." 

"You  assume  too  much — a  great  deal  too  much. 
She  must  be  beautiful — and  good." 

**  Give  me  a  figure.  She's  a  lily,  and  she  draws  the 
kind   of  beauty  that  lilies  have   from   her  personal 


HILDA. 


103 


chastity  and  her  religious  enthusiasm.  Touch  those 
things  and  bruise  them,  as — as  marriage  would  touch 
and  bruise  them — and  she  would  be  a  mere  fragment 
of  stale  vegetation.  You  want  him  to  clasp  that  to 
his  bosom  for  the  rest  of  his  life?  " 

"  I  won't  believe  you.  You're  coarse  and  you're 
cruel." 

Tears  flashed  into  Miss  Livingstone's  eyes  with 
this.  Hilda,  still  regarding  the  ceiling,  was  aware  of 
them,  and  turned  an  impatient  shoulder  while  they 
should  be  brushed  undetected  away. 

"  I'm  sorry,  dear,"  she  said.  "  I  forgot.  You  are 
usually  so  intelligent,  one  can  be  coarse  and  cruel 
with  comfort,  talking  to  you.  Go  into  the  bath-room 
and  get  my  salts— they're  on  the  washhand-stand— will 
you  ?     I'm  quite  faint  with  all  I'm  about  to  undergo." 

Laura  Filbert  came  in  as  Alicia  emerged  with  the 
salts.  Ignoring  the  third  person  with  the  bottle,  she 
went  directly  to  the  bedside  and  laid  her  hand  on 
Hilda's  head. 

"  Oh,  Miss  Howe,  I  am  so  sorry  you  are  sick — so 
sorry,"  she  said.  It  was  a  cooing  of  professional  con- 
cern, true  to  an  ideal,  to  a  necessity. 

"  I  am  not  very  bad,"  Hilda  improvised.  "  Hardly 
more  than  a  headache." 

"  She  makes  light  of  everything,  "  Miss  Filbert  said, 
smiling  toward  Alicia,  who  stood  silent,  the  prey  of 
her  impression.  Discovering  the  blue  salts  bottle, 
Laura  walked  over  to  her  and  took  it  from  her  hands. 

"And  what,"  said  the  barefooted  Salvation  Army 
girl,  "  might  your  name  be  ?  " 

There  was  an  infinite  calm  interest  in  it—it  was  like 
a  conventionality  of  the  other  world,  and  before  its 
assurance  Alicia  stood  helpless. 


104 


HILDA. 


"  Her  name  is  Livingstone,"  called  Hilda  from  the 
bed,  "and  she  is  as  good  as  she  is  beautiful.  You 
needn't  be  troubled  about  her  soul — she  takes  Com- 
munion every  Sunday  morning  at  the  Cathedral." 

"  Hallelujah ! "  said  Captain  Filbert,  in  a  tone  of 
dubious  congratulation. 

"  Much  better,"  said  Hilda,  cheerfully,  "  to  take  it 
at  the  Cathedral,  you  know,  than  nowhere." 

Miss  Filbert  said  nothing  to  this,  but  sat  down  upon 
the  edge  of  the  bed,  looking  serious,  and  stroked 
Hilda's  hair. 

"You  don't  seem  to  have  much  fever,"  she  said. 
"  There  was  a  poor  fellow  in  the  Military  Hospital 
this  morning  with  a  temperature  of  107.  I  could 
hardly  bear  to  touch  him." 

"What  was  the  matter?"  asked  Hilda  idly,  oc- 
cupied with  hypotheses  about  the  third  person  in  the 
room. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  exactly.  Some  complication,  I 
suppose,  of  the  wages  the  body  pays  to  sin." 

"  Divinest  Laura  ! "  Hilda  exclaimed,  drawing  her 
head  back.  "  Do  take  a  chair.  It  will  be  even  more 
soothing  to  see  you  comfortable." 

Captain  Filbert  spoke  again  to  Alica,  as  she  obeyed. 
"  Miss  Howe  is  more  thoughtful  for  others  than  some 
of  our  converted  ones,"  she  said,  with  vast  kindness. 
"  I  have  often  told  her  so.     I  have  had  a  long  day." 

"  It  may  improve  me  in  that  character,"  Hilda 
said,  "  to  suggest  that  if  you  will  go  about  such  peo- 
ple, a  little  carbolic  disinfectant  is  a  good  thing,  or  a 
crystal  or  two  of  permanganate  of  potash  in  your 
bath.     Do  you  use  those  things?  " 

Laura  shook  her  head.     "  Faith  is  better  than  disin- 


££LSE33SlSEa 


HILDA. 


105 


fectants.  I  never  get  any  harm.  My  Master  protects 
me. 

"My  goodness!"  Hilda  said.  And  in  the  silence 
that  occurred,  Captain  Filbert  remarked  that  the  only 
thing  she  used  carbolic  acid  for  was  a  decayed  tooth. 
Presently  Alicia  made  a  great  effort.  She  laid  hands 
on  Hilda's  previous  references  as  a  tangibility  that  re- 
mained with  her. 

"  Do  you  ever  go  to  the  Cathedral  ?  "  she  said. 

The  faintest  shade  of  dogmatism  crossed  Captain 
Filbert's  features,  as  when,  on  a  day  of  cloud  fleeces, 
the  sun  withdraws  for  an  instant  from  a  flower.  Since 
her  sect  is  proclaimed  beyond  the  boundaries  of 
dogma  it  may  have  been  some  other  obscurity,  but  my 
appraisement  fails. 

"  No,  I  never  go  there.  We  raise  our  own  Ebene- 
zer;  we  are  a  tabernacle  to  ourselves." 

"Isn't  it  exquisite — her  way  of  speaking!"  cried 
Hilda  from  the  bed,  and  Laura  glanced  at  her  with  a 
deprecating,  reproachful  smile,  in  reproof  of  an  offence 
admittedly  incorrigible.  But  she  went  on  as  if  she 
were  conscious  of  a  stimulus. 

"  Wherever  the  morning  sky  bends  or  the  stars 
cluster  is  sanctuary  enough,"  she  said;  "a  slum  at 
noonday  is  as  holy  for  us  as  daisied  fields ;  the  Name 
of  the  Lord  walks  with  us.  The  Army  is  His  Army. 
He  is  Lord  of  our  hosts." 

"A  kind  of  chant,"  murmured  Hilda,  and  Miss 
Livingstone  became  aware  that  she  might  if  she  liked 
play  with  the  beginnings  of  magnetism.  Then  that 
impression  was  carried  away,  as  it  were,  on  a  puff  of 
air,  and  it  is  hardly  likely  that  she  thought  of  it  again. 

"  I  suppose  all  the  dite  go  to  the  Cathedral,"  Laura 


io6 


HILDA. 


said.  The  sanctity  of  her  face  was  hardly  disturbed, 
but  a  curiosity  rested  upon  it,  and  behind  the  curios- 
ity a  far-off  little  leaping  tongue  of  some  other  thing. 
Hilda  on  the  bed  named  it  the  constant  feminine  and 
narrowed  her  eyes. 

"  Dear  me,  yes,"  she  said  for  Alicia.  "  His  Excel- 
lency, the  Viceroy,  and  all  his  beautiful  A.D.C.'s,  no 
end  of  military  and  their  ladies.  Secretaries  to  the 
Government  of  India  in  rows,  fully  choral,  Under  Sec- 
retaries so  thick  they're  kept  in  the  vestibule  till  the 
bell  stops.  '  A  nd  make  thy  chosen  people  joyful !  * "  she 
intoned.  "Not  forgetting  Surgeon-Major  and  Miss 
Alicia  Livingstone,  who  occupy  the  fourth  pew  to  the 
right  of  the  main  aisle,  advantageously  near  the  pulpit." 

*'  You  know  already  what  a  humbug  she  is ! "  Alicia 
said,  but  Captain  Filbert's  inner  eye  seemed  retained 
by  that  imaginary  congregation. 

"  Well,  it  would  not  be  any  attraction  for  me,"  she 
said,  rising  to  go  through  the  little  accustomed  function 
of  her  departure.  "  I'll  be  going  now,  I  think.  Ensign 
Sand  has  fever  again  and  I  have  to  take  her  place  at  the 
Believers'  Meeting."  She  took  Hilda's  hand  in  hers 
and  held  it  for  an  instant.  "  Good-bye,  and  God  bless 
you — in  the  way  you  most  need,"  she  said,  and  turned 
to  Alicia,  for  whose  ears  Hilda's  protests  against  the 
girl's  going  broke  meaninglessly  about  the  room. 
"  Good-bye.  I  am  glad  to  know  that  we  will  be  one 
in  the  glad  hereafter,  though  our  paths  may  diverge  " 
— her  eye  rested  with  acknowledgment  upon  Alicia's 
embroidered  sleeves — "  in  this  world.  To  look  at  you 
I  should  have  thought  you  were  of  the  bowed  down 
ones,  not  yet  fully  assured,  but  perhaps  you  only  want 
a  little   more  oxygen  in  the  blood  of  your  religion. 


HILDA. 


107 


Remember  the  word  of  the  Lord — *  Rejoice !  again  I 
say  unto  you,  rejoice ! '     Good-bye." 

She  drew  her  head-covering  further  forward  and 
moved  to  the  door.  It  sloped  to  her  shoulders  ad 
made  them  droop  :  her  native  clothes  clung  about  her 
breast  and  her  hips,  disclosing,  confessing,  insisting 
upon  her  sex  in  the  cringing  oriental  way.  Miss  Howe 
looked  after  her  guest  with  a  curl  of  the  lip  as  uncon- 
trollable as  it  was  unreasonable.  "  A  saved  soul,  per- 
haps. A  woman — oh,  assuredly,"  she  said  in  the 
depths  of  her  hair. 

The  door  had  almost  closed  upon  Captain  Filbert 
when  Alicia  made  something  like  a  dash  at  an  object 
about  to  elude  her.  "  Oh,"  she  exclaimed,  "  Wait  a 
minute.  Will  you  come  and  see  me  ?  I  think — I 
think  you  might  do  me  good.  I  live  at  No.  10,  Mid- 
dleton  street.     Will  you  come  ?  " 

Laura  came  back  into  the  room.  There  was  a  little 
stiffness  in  her  air,  as  if  she  repressed  something. 

"  I  have  no  objection,"  she  said. 

"  To-morrow  afternoon — at  five  ?  Or — my  brother 
is  dining  at  the  club — would  you  rather  come  to  din- 
ner?" 

"  Whichever  is  agreeable  to  you  will  suit  me."  She 
spoke  carefully,  after  an  instant's  hesitation. 

"  Then  do  come  and  dine — at  eight,"  Alicia  said  ; 
and  it  was  agreed. 

She  stood  staring  at  the  door  when  Laura  finally 
closed  it,  and  only  turned  when  Hilda  spoke. 

"  You  are  going  to  have  him  to  meet  her,"  she  said. 
"  May  I  come  too  ?  " 

"Certainly  not."  Alicia's  grasp  was  also  by  this 
time  on  the  door  handle. 


io8 


HILDA. 


"  Are  you  going  too  ?  You  daren't  talk  about  her ! " 
Hilda  cried. 

"  I'm  going  too.  I've  got  the  brougham.  I'll  drive 
her  home,"  said  Alicia,  and  went  out  swiftly. 

"  My  goodness  !  "  Hilda  remarked  again.  Then  she 
got  up  and  found  her  slippers  and  wrote  a  note,  which 
she  addressed  to  the  Reverend  Stephen  Arnold, 
Clarke  Mission  House,  College  street.  ♦'  Thanks  im- 
mensely,"  it  ran,  "  for  your  delightful  offer  to  in- 
troduce me  to  Father  Jordan  and  persuade  him  to 
show  me  the  astronomical  wonders  he  keeps  in  his 
tower  at  St.  Simeon's.  An  hour  with  a  Jesuit  is  an 
hour  of  milk  and  honey,  and  belonging  to  that  charm- 
ing  Order  he  won't  mind  my  coming  on  a  Sunday 
evening — the  first  clear  one." 

Miss  Howe  signed  her  note  and  bit  consideringly 
at  the  end  of  her  pen.  Then  she  added  :  "  If  you 
have  any  influence  with  Duff  Lindsay,  it  may  be  news 
to  you  that  you  can  exert  it  with  advantage  to  keep 
him  from  marrying  a  cheap,  ethereal  little  religieuse  of 
the  Salvation  Army  named  Filbert.  It  may  seem 
more  fitting  that  you  should  expostulate  with  her,  but 
I  don't  advise  that." 


CHAPTER  X.. 

The  door  of  Ensign  Sand's  apartment  stood  open 
with  a  purposeful  air  when  Captain  Filbert  reached 
headquarters  that  evening  ;  but  in  any  case  it  is  likely 
that  she  would  have  gone  in.  Mrs.  Sand  walked  the 
floor,  carrying  a  baby,  a  pale,  sticky  baby  with  blotches, 
which  had  inherited  from  its  maternal  parent  a  con- 
spicuous lack  of  buttons.  Mrs.  Sand's  room  was  also 
ornamented  with  texts,  but  they  had  apparently  been 
selected  at  random,  and  they  certainly  hung  that  way. 
The  piety  of  the  place  seemed  at  the  control  of  an 
oldei  infant,  who  sat  on  the  floor  and  played  with  his 
father's  regimental  cap.  On  the  other  side  of  the 
curtain  Captain  Sand  audibly  washed  himself  and 
brushed  his  hair. 

"  What  kind  of  meetin'  did  you  have  ?  "  asked  Mrs. 
Sand.  "  There — there  now ;  he  shall  have  his  bottle, 
so  he  shall ! " 

"A  beautiful  meeting.  Abraham  Lincoln  White, 
the  Savannah  negro,  you  know,  came  as  a  believer  for 
the  first  time,  and  so  did  Miss  Rozario  from  White- 
way  and  Laidlaw's.     We  had  such  a  happy  time." 

"  What  sort  of  collection  ?  " 

Laura  opened  a  knotted  handkerchief  and  counted 
out  some  copper  coins. 

"  Only  seven  annas  three  pice  !  And  you  call  that 
a  good  meeting !  I  don't  believe  you  exhorted  them 
to  give !  ** 


1 10 


HILDA. 


"  Oh,  I  think  I  did !  "  Laura  returned  mechanically. 

"  Seven  annas  and  three  pice  !  And  you  know  what 
the  Commissioner  wrote  out  about  our  last  quarter's 
earnings  I    What  did  you  say  ?  " 

"  I  said — I  said  the  collection  would  now  be  taken 
up,"  Laura  faltered. 

"Oh  dear!  oh  dear!  Leopold,  stop  clawing  me! 
Couldn't  you  think  of  anythin'  more  tellin'  or  more 
touchin'  than  that  ?  Fever  or  no  fever,  it  does  not  do 
for  me  to  stay  away  from  the  regular  meetin's.  One 
thing  is  plain — he  wasn't  there  !  " 

"Who?" 

"  Well,  you've  never  told  me  his  name,  but  I  ex- 
pect you've  got  your  reasons."  Mrs.  Sand's  tone  was 
not  arch,  but  slightly  resentful.  "  I  mean  the  gentle- 
man that  attends  so  regular  and  sits  behind,  under  the 
window.  A  society  man,  I  should  say,  to  look  at  him, 
though  the  officers  of  this  Army  are  no  respecters  of 
persons,  and  I  don't  suppose  the  Lord  takes  any  no- 
tice of  his  clothes." 

"  His  name  is  Mr.  Lindsay.     No,  he  wasn't  there." 

The  girl's  tone  was  distant  and  cold.  The  rebuke 
about  the  collection  had  gone  home  to  a  place  raw 
with  similar  reproaches. 

"  I  hope  you  haven't  been  discouraging  him  ?" 

Captain  Filbert  looked  at  her  superior  officer  with 
astonishment. 

"I  have  entreated  him  to  come  to  the  meetings. 
But  he  never  attends  a  Believers'  Rally.  Why  should 
he?" 

"  What's  his  state  of  mind  ?  He  came  to  see  you, 
didn't  he,  the  other  night  ?  " 

"  Yes,  he  did.  I  don't  think  he's  altogether  care- 
less." 


HILDA. 


Ill 


"Ain't  he  seeking?" 

"  He  wouldn't  admit  it,  but  he  may  not  know  him- 
self. The  Lord  has  different  ways  of  working.  Whac 
else  should  bring  him  night  after  night  ?  " 

Mrs.  Sand  glanced  meaningly  at  a  point  on  the 
floor,  with  lifted  eyebrows,  then  at  her  officer,  and 
finally  hid  a  badly-disciplined  smile  behind  her  baby's 
head.  When  she  looked  back  again  Laura  had  flushed 
all  over,  and  an  embarrassment  stood  between  them, 
which  she  felt  was  absurd. 

"  My !  "  she  said — scruples  in  breaking  it  could 
hardly  perhaps  have  been  expected  of  her — "  you  do 
look  nice  when  you've  got  a  little  colour.  But  if  you 
can't  see  that  it's  you  that  brings  him  to  the  meetin's 
you  must  be  blind,  that's  all." 

Captain  Filbert's  confusion  was  dispelled,  as  by  the 
wave  of  a  wand. 

"  Then  I  hope  I  may  go  on  bringing  him,"  she  said. 
"  He  couldn't  come  to  a  better  place." 

"Well,  you'll  have  to  be  careful,"  said  Mrs.  Sand,  as 
if  with  severe  intent.  "  But  I  don't  say  discourage 
him ;  I  wouldn't  say  that.  You  may  be  an  influence 
for  good.  It  may  be  His  will  that  you  should  be 
pleasant  to  the  young  man.  But  don't  make  free  with 
him.  Don't,  on  any  account,  have  him  put  his  arm 
round  your  waist." 

"  Nobody  has  done  that  to  me,"  Laura  replied  aus- 
terely, "  since  I  left  Putney,  and  so  long  as  I  am  in 
the  Army  nobody  will.  Not  that  Mr.  Lindsay  "  (she 
blushed  again)  "  would  ever  want  to.  The  class  he  be- 
longs to  look  down  on  it." 

"The  class  he  belongs  to  do  worse  things.  The 
Army  doesn't  look  down  on  it.     It's  only  nature,  and 


112  HILDA. 

the  Army  believes  in  working  with  nature.  If  it  was 
Mr.  Harris  that  wanted  such  a  thing,  I  wouldn't  say 
a  word — he  marches  under  the  Lord's  banner." 

Captain  Filbert  listened  without  confusion;  her 
expression  was  even  slightly  complacent. 

**  Well,"  she  said,  "  I  told  Mr.  Harris  last  evening 
that  the  Lieutenant  and  I  couldn't  go  on  giving  him 
so  much  of  our  time,  and  he  seemed  to  think  he'd 
been  keeping  company  with  me.  I  had  to  tell  him  I 
hadn't  any  such  idea." 

"  Did  he  seem  much  dir-appointed  ?  " 

"  He  said  he  thought  he  would  have  more  of  the 
feeling  of  belonging  to  the  Army  if  he  was  married  in 
it ;  but  I  told  him  he  would  have  to  learn  to  walk 
alone." 

Mrs.  Sand  speculatively  bit  her  lip.  Some  faint  re- 
flection of  the  interview  with  Mr.  Harris  made  her,  as 
far  as  possible,  button  up  her  dressing-gown. 

"  I  don't  know  but  what  you  did  right,"  she  said. 
"  By  the  grace  of  God  you  converted  him,  and  he 
hadn't  ought  to  ask  more  of  you.  But  I  have  a  kind 
of  feeling  that  Mr.  Lindsay'll  be  harder  to  convince." 

"  I  dare  say." 

"  It  would  be  splendid,  though,  to  garner  him  in. 
He  might  be  willing  to  march  with  us  and  subscribe 
half  his  pay,  like  poor  Captain  Corby,  of  the  Queen's 
Army,  did  in  Rangoon." 

"  He  might  be  proud  to." 

"  We  must  all  try  and  bring  sin  home  to  him,"  Mrs. 
Sand  remarked  with  rising  energy  ;  "  and  don't  you 
go  saying  anything  to  him  hastily.  If  he's  gone  on 
you " 

"  Oh,  Ensign  ;  let  us  hope  he  is  thinking  of  higher 


HILDA.  113 

things!  Let  us  both  pray  for  him.  Let  Captain 
Sand  pray  for  him,  too,  and  I'll  ask  the  Lieutenant. 
Now  that  she's  got  Miss  Rozario  safe  into  the  Kingdom, 
I  don't  think  she  has  any  special  object." 

"  Oh,  yes,  we'll  pray  for  him,"  Ensign  Sand  re- 
turned, as  if  that  might  have  gone  without  saying, 
"  but  you " 

"  And  give  me  that  precious  baby.  You  must  be 
completely  worn  out.  I  should  enjoy  taking  care  of 
him  ;  indeed  I  should." 

"  It's  the  first — the  very  first — time  she  ever  took 
that  draggin'  child  out  of  my  arms  for  an  instant,"  the 
Ensign  remarked  to  her  husband  and  next  in  com- 
mand later  in  the  evening,  but  she  resigned  the  infant 
without  protest  at  the  time.  Laura  carried  him  into 
her  own  room  with  something  like  gaiety,  and  there 
repeated  to  him  more  nursery  rhymes,  dating  from 
secular  Putney,  than  she  would  have  believed  she  re- 
membered. 

The  Believers'  Rally,  as  will  be  understood,  was  a 
gathering  of  some  selectness.  If  the  Chinaman  came, 
it  was  because  of  the  vagueness  of  his  reception  of  the 
privileges  he  claimed  ;  and  his  ignorance  of  all  tongues 
but  his  own  left  no  medium  for  turning  him  out. 
Qualms  of  conscience,  however,  kept  all  Miss  Rozario's 
young  lady  friends  away,  and  these  also,  doubtless, 
operated  to  detain  Duff  Lindsay.  One  does  not 
attend  a  Believers'  Rally  unless  one's  personal  faith 
extends  beyond  the  lady  in  command  of  it,  and  one 
specially  refrains  if  one's  spiritual  condition  is  a  deli- 
cate and  debatable  matter  with  her.  In  Wellesley 
square,  later  in  the  evening,  the  conditions  were  differ- 
ent.    It  would  not  be  easy  to  imagine  a  scene  that 


114 


HILDA. 


suggested  greater  liberality  of  sentiment.  The  moon 
shed  her  light  upon  it,  and  the  palms  threw  fretted 
shadows  down.  Beyond  them,  on  four  sides,  lines  of 
street-lamps  shone,  and  tram-drivers  whistled  bullock 
carts  off  the  lines,  and  street  pedlars  lifted  their  cries. 
A  torch  marked  the  core  of  the  group  of  exhorters ;  it 
struck  pale  gold  from  Laura's  hair,  and  made  glorious 
the  buttons  of  the  man  who  beat  the  drum.  She 
talked  to  the  people  in  their  own  language  ;  the  "  open 
air  "  was  designed  for  the  people.  **  Kiko  !  Kiko !  " 
(Why  !  Why  !)  Lindsay  heard  her  cry,  where  he  stood 
in  the  shadow,  on  the  edge  of  the  crowd.  He  looked 
down  at  a  coolie  woman  with  shrivelled  breasts 
crouched  on  her  haunches  upon  the  ground,  bent  with 
the  bricks  of  half  a  century,  and  back  at  the  girl  beside 
the  torch.  '*  Do  not  delay  until  to-morrow  !  "  Laura 
besought  them.  "  Ktil  ka  dart  imit  karo  !  "  A  sensa- 
tion of  disgust  assailed  him  ;  he  turned  away.  Then, 
in  an  impulse  of  atonement — he  felt  already  so  re- 
sponsible for  her — he  went  back  and  dropped  a  coin 
into  the  coolie  creature's  lap.  But  he  grew  more 
miserable  as  he  stood,  and  finally  walked  deliberately 
to  a  wooden  bench  at  a  distance,  where  he  could  not 
hear  her  voice.  Only  the  hymn  pursued  him  ;  they 
sang  presently  a  hymn.  In  the  chorus  the  words 
were  distinguishable,  borne  in  the  robust  accents  of 
Captain  Sand — 

"  Us  ki  ho  tarif, 
Us  ki  ho  tariff  " 

The  strange  words,  limping  on  the  familiar  air,  made 
a  barbarous  jangle,  a  discordance  of  a  special  intoler- 
able sort. 

Lindsay    wondered,    with    a    poignancy    of    pity. 


HILDA.  115 

whether  the  coolie  woman  were  singing  too,  and  found 
something  like  relief  in  the  questionable  reflection 
that  if  she  wasn't,  in  view  of  the  rupee,  she  ought  to 
be. 

"  Glory  to  His  name ! "     "  Glory  to  His  name !  " 

His  "  Good  evening  !  "  when  the  meeting  was  over 
was  a  cheerful,  general  salutation,  and  the  familiarity 
of  the  sight  of  him  was  plain  in  the  response  he  got, 
equally  general  and  equally  cheerful.  Lieutenant  Da 
Cruz's  smile  was  even  further  significant,  if  he  had 
thought  of  interpreting  it,  and  there  was  overt  amiabil- 
ity in  the  manner  in  which  Ensign  Sand  put  her 
hymn-books  together  and  packed  everybody,  includ- 
ing her  husband,  whose  arm  she  took,  out  of  the  way. 

"  Wait  for  me,"  Laura  said,  to  whom  a  Eurasian 
beggar  made  elaborate  appeal,  as  they  moved  off. 

"  I  guess  you've  got  company  to  see  you  home," 
Mrs.  Sand  called  out,  and  they  did  not  wait.  As 
Lindsay  came  closer,  the  East  Indian  paused  in  his 
tale  of  the  unburied  wife  for  whom  he  could  not 
afford  a  coflfin,  and  slipped  away. 

"  The  Ensign  knows  she  oughtn't  to  talk  like  that," 
Laura  said.  Lindsay  marked  with  a  surge  of  pleasure 
that  she  was  flushed  and  seemed  perturbed. 

"  What  she  said  was  quite  true,"  he  ventured. 

"  But — anybody  would  think " 

"What  would  anybody  think?  Shall  we  keep  to 
this  side  of  the  road?  It's  quieter.  What  would 
anybody  think  ?  " 

"  Oh,  silly  things."  Laura  threw  up  her  head  with 
a  half  laugh.     "  Things  I  needn't  mention." 

Lindsay  was  silent  for  an  instant.  Then  "  Between 
us  ?  "  he  asked,  and  she  nodded. 


ii6  HILDA. 

Their  side  of  the  street,  along  the  square,  was 
nearly  empty.  He  found  her  hand  and  drew  it 
through  his  arm.  "  Would  you  mind  so  very  much," 
he  said,  "  if  those  silly  things  were  true  ? "  He 
spoke  as  if  to  a  child.  His  passion  was  never  more 
clearly  a  single  object  to  him,  divorced  from  all  com- 
plicating and  non-essential  impressions  of  her.  "  I 
would  give  all  I  possess  to  have  it  so,"  he  told  her, 
catching  at  any  old  foolish  phrase  that  would  serve. 

*'  I  don't  believe  you  mean  anything  like  all  you 
say,  Mr.  Lindsay."  Her  head  was  bent  and  she  kept 
her  hand  within  his  arm.  He  seemed  to  be  a  cir- 
cumstance that  brought  her  reminiscences  of  how  one 
behaved  sentimentally  toward  a  young  man  with  whom 
there  was  no  serious  entanglement.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising  that  he  saw  only  one  thing,  walls  going  down 
before  him,  was  aware  only  of  something  like  invita- 
tion. Existence  narrowed  itself  to  a  single  glowing 
point ;  as  he  looked  it  came  so  near  that  he  bounded 
to  meet  it. 

"  Dear,"  he  said,  "  you  can't  know — there  is  no  way 
of  telling  you — what  I  mean.  I  suppose  every  man 
feels  the  same  thing  about  the  woman  he  loves ;  but 
it  seems  to  me  that  my  life  had  never  known  the  sun 
until  I  saw  you.  I  can't  explain  to  you  how  poor  it 
was,  and  I  won't  try ;  but  I  fancy  Gcd  sends  every 
one  of  us,  if  we  know  it,  some  one  blessed  chance, 
and  He  did  more  for  me — He  lifted  the  veil  of  my 
stupidity  and  let  me  see  it,  passing  by  in  its  halo, 
trailing  clouds  of  glory.  I  don't  want  to  make  you 
understand,  though — I  want  to  make  5'^ou  promise.  I 
want  to  be  absolutely  sure  from  to-night  that  you'll 
marry  me.     Say  that  you'll  marry  me — say  it  before 


HILDA. 


117 


we  get  to  the  crossing.  Say  it,  Laura."  She  listened 
to  his  first  words  with  a  little  half-controlled  smile, 
then  made  as  if  she  would  withdraw  her  hand,  but  he 
held  it  with  his  own,  and  she  heard  him  through, 
walking  beside  him  formally  in  her  bare  feet,  and 
looking  carefully  at  the  asphalt  pavement  as  they  do 
in  Putney. 

"I  don't  object  to  your  calling  me  by  my  given 
name,"  she  said  when  he  had  done,  "  but  it  can't  go 
any  further  than  that,  Mr.  Lindsay,  and  you  ought 
not  to  bring  God  into  it— indeed  you  ought  not. 
You  are  no  son  or  servant  of  His — you  are  among 
those  whose  very  light  is  darkness,  and  how  great  is 
your  darkness !  " 

"  Don't,"  he  said  shortly,  "  never  mind  about  that 
— now.  You  needn't  be  afraid  of  me,  Laura— there 
are  decent  chaps,  you  know,  outside  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,  and  one  of  them  wants  you  to  marry  him, 
that's  how  it  is.     Will  you  ?  " 

"I  don't  wish  to  judge  you,  Mr.  Lindsay,  and  I'm 
very  much  obliged,  but  I  couldn't  dream  of  it." 

"  Don't  dream  of  it ;  consider  it,  accept  it.  Why, 
darling,  you  are  half  mine  already— don't  you  feel 
that  ?  " 

Her  arm  was  certainly  warm  within  his  and  he  had 
the  possession  of  his  eyes  in  her.  Her  tired  body 
even  clung  to  him.  "  Are  you  quite  sure  you  haven't 
begun  to  think  of  loving  me  ?"  he  demanded. 

"  It  isn't  a  question  of  love,  Mr.  Lindsay,  it's  a  ques- 
tion of  the  Army.  You  don't  seem  to  think  the  Army 
counts  for  anything." 

One  is  convinced  that  it  wasn't  a  question  of  love, 
the  least  in  the  world ;  but  Lindsay  detected  an  eva- 


ii8  HILDA.     . 

sion  in  what  she  said,  and  the  flame  in  him  leaped 
up. 

"  Sweet,  when  love  is  concerned  there  is  no  other 
question." 

"  Is  that  a  quotation  ? "  she  asked.  She  spoke 
coldly,  and  this  time  she  succeeded  in  withdrawing  her 
hand.  "  I  dare  say  you  think  the  Army  very  common, 
Mr.  Lindsay,  but  to  me  it  is  marching  on  a  great  and 
holy  crusade,  and  I  march  with  it.  You  would  not 
ask  me  to  give  up  my  life-work  ?  " 

"  Only  to  take  it  into  another  sphere,"  Duff  said, 
unreflectively.  He  was  checked  but  not  discouraged, 
impatient,  but  in  no  wise  cast  down.  She  had  not 
flown,  she  walked  beside  him  placidly.  She  had  no 
intention  of  flight.  He  tried  to  resign  himself  to  the 
task  of  beating  down  her  trivial  objections,  curbing  his 
athletic  impulse  to  leap  over  them. 

"  Another  sphere  " — he  caught  a  subtle  pleasure  in 
her  enunciation.  "  I  suppose  you  mean  high  society  ; 
but  it  would  never  be  the  same." 

•*  Not  quite  the  same.  You  would  have  to  drive 
to  see  your  sinners  in  a  carriage  and  pair,  and  you 
might  be  obliged  to  dine  with  them  in — what  do  ladies 
generally  dine  in  ? — white  satin  and  diamonds,  or  pearls. 
I  think  I  would  rather  see  you  in  pearls."  He  was 
aware  of  the  inexcusableness  of  the  points  he  made, 
but  he  only  stopped  to  laugh  inwardly  at  their  im- 
pression, watching  the  absorbed  turn  of  her  head. 

"  We  might  think  it  well  to  be  a  little  select  in  our 
sinners — most  of  them  would  be  on  Government  House 
list,  just  as  most  of  your  present  ones  are  on  the  lists 
of  the  charitable  societies  or  the  district  magistrates. 
But  you  would  find  just  as  much  to  do  for  them." 


HILDA.  119 

**  I  should  not  even  know  how  to  act  in  such  com- 
pany." 

•*  You  can  go  home  for  a  year,  if  you  like,  to  be 
taught,  to  some  people  I  know  ;  delightful  people,  who 
will  understand.  A  year!  You  will  learn  in  three 
months— what  odds  and  ends  there  are  to  know.  I 
couldn't  spare  you  for  a  year." 

Lindsay  stopped.  He  had  to.  Captain  Filbert  was 
murmuring  the  cadences  of  a  hymn.  She  went  through 
two  stanzas,  and  covered  her  eyes  for  a  moment  with 
her  hand.  When  she  spoke  it  was  in  a  quiet,  level, 
almost  mechanical  way.  "Yes,"  she  said.  "The 
Cross  and  the  Crown,  the  Crown  and  the  Cross. 
Father  in  Heaven,  I  do  not  forget  Thy  will  and  Thy 
purpose,  that  I  should  bring  the  word  of  Thy  love  to 
the  poor  and  the  lowly,  the  outcast  and  those  despised. 
And  what  I  say  to  this  man,  who  offers  me  the  gifts 
and  the  gladness  of  a  world  that  had  none  for  Thee,  is 
the  answer  Thou  hast  put  in  my  heart— that  the  work 
IS  Thine  and  that  I  am  Thine,  and  he  has  no  part  or 
lot  in  me,  nor  can  ever  have.  Here  is  Crooked  lane. 
Good-night,  Mr.  Lindsay." 

She  had  slipped  into  the  devious  darkness  of  the 
place  before  he  could  find  any  reply,  before  he  quite 
realised,  indeed,  that  they  had  reached  her  lodging. 
He  could  only  utter  a  vague  "Good-night  "  after  her, 
formulating  more  definite  statements  to  himself  a  few 
minutes  later  in  Bentinck  street. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Miss  Howe  was  walking  in  the  business  quarter  of 
Calcutta.     It  was  the  business  quarter,  and  yet  the  air 
was  gay  with  the  dimpling  of  piano  notes,  and  looking 
up  one  saw  the  bright  sunlight  fall  on  yellow  stuccoed 
flats  above   the   shops   and    the   offices.     There    the 
pleasant  north  wind   blew  banners  of  muslin  curtains 
out  of  wide  windows,  and  little  gardens  of  palms  in 
pots  showed  behind  the  balustrades  of  the  flat  roofs 
whenever  a  story  ran  short.     Everywhere  was  a  subtle 
contagion  of  momentary  well-being,  a  sense  of  lifted 
burden.     The  stucco  streets  were  too  slovenly  to  be 
purely  joyous,   but   a  warm   satisfaction   brooded   in 
them,  the  pariahs  blinked  at  one  genially,  there  was  a 
note  of  cheer  even  in  the  cheeling  of  the  kites  where 
they  sat  huddled  on  the  roof-cornices  or  circled  against 
the  high  blue  sky.     It  was  enjoyable  to  be  abroad,  in 
the  brushing  fellowship  of  the  pavements,  in  touch 
with  brown  humility,  half-clad  and  going  afoot,  since 
even  brown  humility  seemed  well  affected  toward  the 
world,  alert  and  content.     The  air  was  full  of  the  com- 
fortable  flavour  of  food-stuffs  and  spiced  luxuries  and 
the  incense  of  wayside  trees ;  it  was  as  if  the  sun  laid 
a  bland  compelling  hand  upon  the  city,  bidding  strange 
flowers  bloom  and   strange  fruits  increase.     Brokers' 
gharries  rattled  past,  each  holding  a  pale  young  man 
preoccupied  with   a   note-book;  where   the  bullock- 


HILDA.  121 

carts  gathered  themselves  together  and  blocked  the 
road  the  pale  young  men  put  excited  heads  out  of  the 
gharry  windows  and  used  remarkable  imprecations. 
One  of  them,  as  Hilda  turned  into  the  compound  of 
the  Calcutta  Chronicle^  leaned  out  to  take  off  his  hat, 
and  sent  her  up  to  the  office  of  that  journal  in  the 
pleasant  reflection  of  his  infinite  interest  in  life. 
"  Upon  my  word,"  she  said  to  herself,  as  she  ascended 
the  stairs  behind  the  lean  legs  of  a  Mussulman  servant 
in  a  dirty  shirt  and  an  embroidered  cap,  "he's  so  light- 
hearted,  so  general,  that  one  doubts  the  very  tre- 
mendous effect  even  of  a  failure  like  the  one  he 
contemplates." 

She  sent  her  card  in  to  the  manager-sahib  by  the 
lean  Mussulman,  and  followed  it  past  the  desks  of  two 
or  three  Bengali  clerks,  who  hardly  lifted  their  well- 
oiled  heads  from  their  account-books  to  look  at  her — 
so  many  memsahibs  to  whose  enterprises  the  Chronicle 
gave  prominence  came  to  see  the  manager-sahib  and 
they  were  so  much  alike.  At  all  events  they  carried 
a  passport  to  indifference  in  the  fact  that  they  all 
wanted  something,  and  it  was  clear  to  the  meanest 
intelligence  that  they  appeared  to  be  more  magnifi- 
cent than  they  were,  visions  in  dazzling  complexions 
and  long  kid  gloves,  rattling  up  in  third-class  ticca- 
gharries,  with  a  wisp  of  fodder  clinging  to  their  skirts. 
It  was  less  interesting  still  when  they  belonged  to  the 
other  class,  the  shabby  ladies,  nearly  always  in  black, 
with  husbands  in  the  Small  Cause  Court,  or  sons 
before  the  police  magistrate,  who  came  to  get  it,  if 
possible,  "  kept  out  of  the  paper."  Successful  or  not, 
these  always  wept  on  their  way  out,  and  nothing 
could  be  more  depressing.     The  only  gleam  of  enter- 


__ 


122  HILDA. 

tainment  to  be  got  out  of  a  lady  visitor  to  the  man- 
ager-sahib occurred  when  the  female  form  enshrined 
the  majestic  personality  of  a  boarding-house  madam, 
whose  asylum  for  respectable  young  men  in  leading 
Calcutta  firms  had  been  maliciously  traduced  in  the 
local  columns  of  the  Chronicle — a  lady  who  had  never 
known  what  a  bailiiff  looked  like  in  the  lifetime  of 
her  first  husband,  or  her  second  either.  Then  at  the 
sound  of  a  pudgy  blow  upon  a  table  or  high  abusive 
accents  in  the  rapid,  elaborate  cadences  of  the  domi- 
ciled East  Indian  tongue,  Hari  Babu  would  glance  at 
Gobind  Babu  with  a  careful  smile,  for  the  manager- 
sahib  who  dispensed  so  much  galli  *  was  now  receiv- 
ing the  same,  and  defenceless. 

The  manager  sat  at  his  desk  when  Hilda  went  in. 
He  did  not  rise — he  was  one  of  those  highly  sagacious 
little  Scotchmen  that  Dundee  exports  in  such  large 
numbers  to  fill  small  posts  in  the  East,  and  she  had 
come  on  business.  He  gave  her  a  nod,  however, 
and  an  affectionate  smile,  and  indicated  with  his  blue 
pencil  a  chair  on  the  other  side  of  the  table.  He  had 
once  made  three  hundred  rupees  in  tea  shares,  and 
that  gave  him  the  air  of  a  capitalist  and  speculator 
gamely  shrewd.  Tapping  the  table  with  his  blue 
pencil,  he  asked  Miss  Howe  how  the  world  was  using 
her. 

"  Let  me  see,"  said  Hilda,  a  trifle  absent-mindedly, 
"  were  you  here  last  cold  weather — I  rather  imagine 
you  were,  weren't  you  ?  " 

"  I  was  ;  I  had  the  pleasure  of — " 

"  To  be  sure.  You  got  the  place  in  December, 
when   that   poor   fellow  Baker  died.     Baker  was  a 

•  Abuse. 


HILDA. 


133 


country-bred,  I  know,  but  he  always  kept  his  contracts, 
while  you  got  your  p6-lish  in  Glesca,  and  your  name 
is  Macphairson— isn't  it  ?  " 

"  I  was  never  in  Glasscow  in  my  life,  and  my  name 
is  Macandrew,"  said  the  manager,  putting  with  some 
aggressiveness  a  paper-weight  on  a  pile  of  bills. 

•'  Never  mind,"  said  Hilda,  again  wrapped  in 
thought,  ''don't  apologise— it's  near  enough.  Well, 
Mr.  Macandrew  "—her  tone  came  to  a  point — "what 
is  the  Stanhope  Company's  advertisement  worth  a 
month  to  the  Chronicle}'' 

"A  hundred  rupees,  maybe— there  or  thereabouts," 
and  Mr.  Macandrew,  with  a  vast  show  of  indifference, 
picked  up  a  letter  and  began  to  tear  at  the  end  of  it.  ' 
"  One  hundred  and  fifty-five,  I  think,  to  be  precise. 
That  communication  will  wait,  won't  it?  What  is 
it— Kally  Nath  Mitter's  paper  and  stores  bill  ?  You 
won't  be  able  to  pay  it  any  quicker  if  we  withdraw 
our  advertisement." 

"Why  should  ye  withdraw  it?  " 
"  It  was  given  to  you  on  the  understanding  that  no- 
tices should  appear  of  every  Wednesday  and  Saturday's 
performance.     For  two  Wednesdays  there  has  been 
no  notice,  and  last  Saturday  night  you  sent  a  fool." 

"So    Muster   Stanhope   thinks  o'  withdrawin'   his 
advertisement  ?  " 

"  He  is  very  much  of  that  mind." 
The  manager  put  his  thumbs  in  the  armholes  of  his 
waistcoat,  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  and   demonstrated 
the    principle   that    had   given    him   a  gold    watch 
chain—"  Never  be  bluffed." 

"Ye   can    withdraw   it,"   he  said,    with   a   warily 
experimental  eye  upon  her. 


r 


124 


HILDA. 


"  How  reasonable  of  you  not  to  make  a  fuss  !  We'll 
have  the  order  to  discontinue  in  writing,  please  If 
you  give  me  a  pen  and  paper— thanks-and  I'll  keen 
a  copy."  '^ 

"  Stanhope  has  wanted  to  transfer  it  to  the  Market 
Gazette  for  some  time,"  she  went  on  as  she  wrote, 
therl"  *'  "°^  ^  newspaper.     You'll  get  no  notices 

'•  Cheaper  on  that  account,  probably  " 
"  They  charge  like  the  very  deevil.     D'ye  know  the 
rates  of  them  ?       . 

"I  can't  say  I  do." 

"There's  a  man  on  our  staff  that  doesn't  like  your 
show     We  11  be  able  to  send  him  every  night  now." 
When  we  withdraw  our  advertisement  ?  " 
"Just  then." 

"All  right,"  said  Hilda.  "  It  will  be  interesting  to 
pomt  out  in  the  Indian  Empire  the  remarkable  growth 
of  mdependent  criticism  in  the  Chronicle  since  Mr 
Stanhope  no  longer  uses  the  space  at  his  disposal  I 
hope  your  man  will  be  very  nasty  indeed.  You  might 
as  well  hand  over  the  permanent  passes— the  gentle- 
man will  expect,  I  suppose,  to  pay." 

"They'll  be  in  the  yeditorial  department,"  said  Mr 
Macandrew,  but  he  did  not  summon  a  messenger  to 
go  for  them.  Instead  he  raised  his  eyebrows  in  a  man- 
ner that  expressed  the  necessity  of  making  the  best  of 
It,  and  humourously  scratched  his  head. 

"  We  have  four  hundred  pounds  of  new  type  coming 
out  m  the  Alinora~^\i€^  due  on  Thursday,"  he  said 
"  Entirely  for  the  advertisements.     We'll  have  a  fine 
display  next  week.     It's  grand  type-none    of  your 
Calcutta-made  stuff." 


HILDA. 


125 


•11 
If 

-P 
et 


"Pays  to  bring  it  out,  does  it?"  asked  Hilda,  in- 
attentively, copying  her  letter. 

"Pays  the  advertisers."  There  were  ingratiating 
qualities  in  the  managerial  smile.  Hilda  insDected 
them  coldly. 

"There's  your  notice  of  withdrawal,"  she  said. 
"  Good-morning." 

"  Think  of  that  new  type,  and  how  lovely  Jimmy 
Finnigan's  ad.  will  look  in  it." 

"  That's  all  right.  Good-morning."  Miss  Howe 
approached  the  door,  the  blue  glance  of  Macandrew 
pursuant. 

"  No  notices  for  two  Wednesdays,  eh  ?  We'll  have 
to  see  about  that.  I  was  thinkin'  of  transferrin'  your 
space  to  the  third  page;  it's  a  more  advantageous 
position— and  no  extra  charge— but  ye'll  not  mention 
it  to  Jimmy." 

Miss  Howe  lifted  an  arrogant  chin.  "  Do  I  under- 
stand you'll  do  that,  and  guarantee  regular  notices,  if 
we  leave  the  advertisement  with  you  ?  " 

Mr.  Macandrew  looked  at  her  expressively  and  tore, 
with  a  gesture  of  moderated  recklessness,  the  notice 
of  withdrawal  in  two. 

"Rest  easy,"  he  said,  « I'll  see  about  it.     I'd  go  the 
en  th  of  attendin'  myself  to-night,  if  ye  could  spare 
three  extra  places." 

"  Moderate  Macandrew  !  " 

"  Moderate  enough.  I've  got  some  frien's  stayin'  in 
the  same  place  with  me  from  Behar-indigo  people. 
I  was  thinkin'  I'd  give  them  a  treat,  if  three  places  c'd 
be  spared  next  to  the  Chronicle  seats." 
^  "We  do  Lady  Whippleton  to-night  and  the  book- 
ing  s  been  heavy.     Five  is  too  many,  Mr.  Macandrew, 


'2^  HILDA. 

even  if  you   promise  not  to   write  the  notice  your. 

"I  might  pay  for  one-"  Macandrew  drew  red 
cartwheels  on  his  blotting-pad. 

"Those  seats  are  sure  to  be  gone.  I'll  send  you  a 
box.  Stanhope  s  as  bad  as  he  can  be  with  dysentery 
-you  might  make  a  local  out  of  that.  Be  sure  to 
mention  he  can  t  see  anybody-it's  absurd  the  way 
i-alcutta  people  want  to  be  paid." 

"A  box'll  be  grand,"  said  Mr.  Macandrew.  "I'll 
see  ye  get  plenty  of  ancores.  Can  ye  manage  the 
door?     Good-day,  then."  b         ^ 

^li^^a  stepped  out  on  the  landing.     The  heavy,  reg- 
ular thud  of  the  presses  came  up  from  below.     They 
were  pnntmg  the  edition  that  took  the  world's  news 
o  p  anters   bungalows  in  the  jungle  of  Assam  and  the 
lonely  policemen    on   the   edge   of   Manipore.      The 
smell  of  the  newspaper  of  to-day  and  of  yesterday  and 
ot  a  year  ago  stood  in  the  air  ;  through  an  open  door 
she   saw   the  dusty,  uneven  piles   of   them,  piled    on 
the  floor.     Three  or  four  messengers  squatted  beside 
the  wall,  with  slumbrous  heads  between  their  knees. 
Occasionally  a  shout  came  from  the  room  inside,  and 
oneof  them,  crying  "/j^^-wr/"  with  instant  alacrity, 
stretched  himself  mightily,  loafed  upon  his  feet  and 
went  in,  emerging   a  moment  later   carrying  written 
sheets,  with  which  he  disappeared  into  the  regions  be- 
low.    The  staircase  took  a  lazy   curve  and  went  up  ; 
under  it,  through  an  open  window,  the  sun  glistened 
upon  the  shifting  white  and  green  leaves  of  a  pipal  tree 
and  a  crow  sat  on  the  sill  and  thrust  his  grey  head  in 
with   caws  of  indignant   expostulation.     A   Govern- 
ment peon  in  scarlet  and  gold  ascended  the  stair  at 


HILDA. 


127 


his  own  pace,  bearing  a  packet  with  an  official  seal. 
The  place,  with  its  ink-smeared  walls  and  high  ceilings, 
spoke  between  dusty  yawns  of  the  langour  and  the 
leisure  which  might  attend  the  manipulation  of  the 
business  of  life,  and  Hilda  paused  for  an  instant  to 
perceive  what  it  said.  Then  she  walked  behind  her 
card  into  the  next  room,  where  a  young  gentleman, 
reading  proofs  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  flung  himself  upon 
his  coat  and  struggled  into  it  at  her  approach.  He 
seemed  to  have  the  blackest  hair  and  the  softest  eyes 
and  the  neatest  moustache  available,  all  set  in  a  com- 
plexion frankly  olive,  amiable  English  cut,  in  amiable 
Oriental  colour,  and  the  whole  illumined,  when  once 
the  coat  was  on  and  the  collar  perfectly  turned  down, 
by  the  liveliest,  most  engaging  smile.  Standing  with 
his  head  slightly  on  one  side  and  one  hand  resting  on 
the  table  while  the  other  saw  that  nothing  was  disar- 
ranged between  collar  and  top  waistcoat  button,  he 
was  an  interjection-point  of  imitation  and  attention. 
,  "  The  editor  of  the  Chronicle  ?  "  Hilda  asked  with 
diffident  dignity,  and  very  well  informed  to  the  con- 
trary. 

"  Not  the  editor — I  am  sorry  to  say."  The  confes- 
sion was  delightfully  vivid — in  the  plentitude  of  his 
candour  it  was  plain  that  he  didn't  care  who  knew 
that  he  was  sorry  he  was  not  the  editor.  "  In  journalis- 
tic parlance  the  sub-editor,"  he  added.  "  Will  you 
be  seated.  Miss  Howe  ?  "  and  with  a  tasteful  silk  pocket 
handkerchief  he  whisked  the  bottom  of  a  chair  for  her. 

"Then  you  are  Mr.  Molyneux  Sinclair,"  Hilda  de- 
clared. "  You  have  been  pointed  out  to  me  on  sev- 
eral first  nights.  Oh,  I  know  very  well  where  the 
Chronicle  seats  are ! " 


128  HILDA. 

Mr.  Sinclair  bowed  with  infinite  gratification  and 
tucked  the  silk  handkerchief  back  so  that  only  a  fold 
was  visible.  "  We  members  of  the  Fourth  Estate  are 
fairly  well  known,  I'm  afraid,  in  Calcutta,"  he  said. 
*•  Personally,  I  could  sometimes  wish  it  were  other- 
wise.    But  certainly  not  in  this  instance." 

Hilda  gave  him  a  gay  little  smile.  "  I  suppose  the 
editor,"  she  said,  with  a  casual  glance  about  the 
room,  "  is  hammering  out  his  leader  for  to-morrow's 
paper.  Does  he  write  half  and  do  you  write  half,  or 
how  do  you  manage?  " 

A  seriousness  overspread  Mr.  Sinclair's  countenance, 
which  he  nevertheless  irradiated,  as  if  he  could  not 
help  it,  with  beaming  eyes.  "  Ah,  those  are  the 
secrets  of  the  prison-house,  Miss  Howe.  Unfortu- 
nately, it  is  not  etiquette  for  me  to  say  in  what  pro- 
portion I  contribute  the  leading  articles  of  the  ChronU 
cle.  But  I  can  tell  you  in  confidence  that  if  it  were 
not  for  the  editor's  prejudices — rank  prejudices — it 
would  be  a  good  deal  larger." 

"Ah,  his  prejudices!  Why  not  be  quite  frank,  Mr. 
Sinclair,  and  say  that  he  is  just  a  little  tiny  bit  jealous 
of  his  staff.  All  editors  are,  you  know."  Miss  Howe 
shook  her  head  in  philosophical  deprecation  of  the 
peccadillo,  and  Mr.  Sinclair  cast  a  smiling,  embarrassed 
glance  at  his  smart  brown  leather  boot.  The  glance 
was  radiant  with  what  he  couldn't  tell  her  as  a  sub- 
editor of  honour  about  those  cruel  prejudices,  but  he 
gave  it  no  other  medium. 

"I'm  afraid  you  know  the  world,  Miss  Howe,"  he 
said,  with  a  noble  reserve,  and  that  was  all. 

"  A  corner  of  it  here  and  there.  But  you  are  re- 
sponsible for  the  whole  of  the  dramatic  criticism  " — 


. 


HILDA. 


129 


Hilda  charged  him  roundly—"  the  editor  can't  claim 
any  of  that'' 

An  inquiring  brown  face  under  an  embroidered  cap 
appeared  at  the  door  ;  a  brown  hand  thrust  in  a  bunch 
of  printed  slips.  Mr.  Sinclair  motioned  both  away, 
and  they  vanished  in  silence. 

••  That  1  can't  deny,"  he  said.  "  It  would  be  useless 
if  I  wished  to  do  so— my  style  betrays  me— I  must 
plead  guilty.  It  is  not  one  of  my  legitimate  duties— 
if  I  held  this  position  on  the  Times  or,  say,  the  Daily 
Telegraph,  our  London  contemporaries,  it  would  not 
be  required  of  me.  But  in  this  country  everything  is 
piled  upon  the  sub-editor.  Many  a  night,  Miss  Howe, 
I  send  down  the  last  slips  of  a  theatre  notice  at  mid- 
night and  am  here  in  this  chair  " — Mr.  Sinclair  brought 
his  open  palm  down  upon  the  arm  of  it — "  by  eleven 
the  following  day !  "  Mr.  Sinclair's  chin  was  thrust 
passionately  forward,  moisture  dimmed  the  velvety 
brightness  of  those  eyes  which,  in  more  dramatic  mo- 
ments, he  confessed  to  have  inherited  from  a  Nawab 
great  grandfather.  "  But  I  don't  complain,"  he  said, 
and  drew  in  his  chin.  It  seemed  to  bring  his  argu- 
ment to  a  climax,  over  which  he  looked  at  Hilda  in 
warm,  frank  expansion. 

"  Overworked,  too,  I  dare  say,"  she  said,  and  then 
went  on  a  trifle  hurriedly  :  "  Well,  I  must  tell  you, 
Mr.  Sinclair,  how  kind  your  criticism  always  is,  and 
how  much  I  personally  appreciate  it.  None  of  the 
little  points  and  effects  one  tries  to  make  seem  to  es- 
cape you,  and  you  are  always  generous  in  the  matter 
of  space  too." 

Molyneux  impartially  slapped  his  leg.  "  I  believe 
in  it !  "  he  exclaimed.     "  Honour  where  honour  is  due, 


130  HILDA. 

Miss  Howe,  and  the  Stanhope  Company  has  given  me 
some  very  enjoyable  evenings.  And  you'll  hardly  be- 
lieve me,  but  it  is  a  fact,  I  assure  you ;  I  seldom  get  a 
free  hand  with  those  notices.  Suicidal  to  the  interests 
r  f  the  paper  as  it  is,  the  editor  insists  as  often  as  not 
on  cutting  down  my  theatre  copy !  " 

"Cuts  it  down,  does  he?  The  brute!"  said  Miss 
Howe. 

"  I've  known  him  sacrifice  a  third  of  it  for  an  indigo 
market  report.  Now,  I  ask  you,  who  reads  an  indigo 
market  report  ?  Nobody.  Who  wants  to  know  how 
Jimmy  Finnigan's— how  the  Stanhope  Company's 
latefit  novelties  went  off?  Everybody.  Of  course, 
when  he  does  that  sort  of  thing,  I  make  it  warm  for 
him  next  morning." 

The  door  again  opened  and  admitted  a  harassed 
little  Babu  in  spectacles,  bearing  a  sheaf  of  proof  slips, 
who  advanced  timidly  into  the  middle  of  the  room 
and  paused. 

"In  a  few  minutes,  Babu,"  said  Mr.  Sinclair;  "I 
am  engaged." 

"  It  iss  the  Council  isspeech  of  the  Legal  Mciuber, 
sir,  and  it  iss  to  go  at  five  p.  m.  to  his  house  for  last 
correction." 

"Presently,  Babu.  Don't  interrupt.  As  I  was 
saying.  Miss  Howe,  I  make  it  warm  for  him  till  he 
apologises.  I  must  say  he  always  apologises,  and  I 
don't  often  ask  more  than  that.  But  I  was  obliged  to 
tell  him  the  last  time  that  if  it  happened  again  one  of 
us  would  have  to  go." 

"  Vv^hat  did  he  say  to  that  ?  " 

"  I  don't  exactly  remember.  But  it  had  a  tremen- 
dous  effect— tremendous.  We  becanriC  good  friends 
almost  immediately." 


HII,DA.  ,31 

"Quite  so.     We  miss  you  when  you  don't  come 
Mr.  Smclair— last  Saturday  night,  for  example." 

"  I  had  to  go  to  the  Surprise  Party.  Jimmy  came 
here  with  tears  m  his  eyes  that  morning.  '  My  show 
is  tumbling  to  pieces,'  he  said.  '  Sinclair,  you Ve  got 
to  come  to-night.'  Made  me  dine  with  him-wouldn't 
let  me  out  of  his  sight.  We  had  to  send  a  reporter  to 
you  and  Llewellyn  that  night." 

"  Mr.  Sinclair,  the  notice  made  me  weep." 

"  I  know.     All  that  about  the  costumes.'    But  what 
can  you  expect  ?     The  man  is  as  black  as  your  hat." 

"We  have  to  buy  our  own  costumes,"  said  Hilda 
with  a  glance  at  the  floor,  "  and  we  haven't  any  too 
much,  you  know,  to  do  it  on." 

"  The  toilettes  in  Her  Second  Son  were  simply  ma^- 
nificent.  Not  to  be  surpassed  on  the  boards  of  the 
Lyceum  in  tasteful  design  or  richness  of  material. 
They  xvcre  ne plus  ultra  /  "  cried  Mr.  Sinclair.  "  You 
will  remember  I  said  so  in  my  critique." 

"  I  remember.     If  I  were  you  I  wouldn't  go  so  far 

another   time.     There'*?   a    Inf   r.(       ^^  , 

ic.     ineres   a   lot   of   cotton   velvet  and 

satin  about  it,  you  know,  between  ourselves,  and  Fin- 
n.gan  s  people  will  be  getting  the  laugh  on  us.  That's 
one  of  the  things  I  wanted  to  mention.  Don't  be 
quite  so  good  to  us.  See?  Otherwise-well,  you 
know  how  Calcutta  talks,  and  what  a  pretty  girl  Beryl 
Stacey  IS,  for  example.  Mrs.  Sinclair  mightn't  like  it 
and  I  don't  blame  her."  ' 

wo'rld."  ^   '"'"^    ^'^'''''   ^^""   ^°^''   y°"    ^"°^    the 

Mr.  Sinclair  replied  with  infinite  mellow  humour, 
and  as  Miss  Howe  had  risen,  he  rose  too,  pulling  down 
his  waistcoat.  s  ^^wii 


I 


132  HILDA. 

"  There  was  just  one  other  thing,"  Hilda  said,  hold- 
ing out  her  hand.  "  Next  Wednesday,  you  know, 
Rosa  Norton  takes  her  benefit.  Rosy's  as  well  known 
here  as  the  Ochterlony  monument ;  she's  been  coming 
every  cold  weather  for  ten  years,  poor  old  Rosy. 
Don't  you  think  you  could  do  her  a  bit  of  an  inter- 
view for  Wednesday's  paper?  She'll  write  up  very 
well— get  her  on  variety  entertainments  in  the  Aus- 
tralian bush." 

Mr.  Molyneux  Sinclair  looked  pained  to  hesitate. 
**  Personally,"  he  said,  confidentially,  '•  I  should  like 
it  immensely,  and  I  dare  say  I  could  get  it  past  the 
editor.     But  we're  so  short-handed." 

Miss  Howe  held  up  a  forefinger  which  seemed  lumi- 
nous with  solution.  "  Don't  you  bother,"  she  said, 
"  I'll  do  it  for  you  ;  I'll  write  it  myself.  My  'prentice 
hand  I'll  try  on  Rosy,  and  you  shall  have  the  result 
ready  to  print  on  Tuesday  morning.     Will  that  do  ?  " 

That  would  do  supremely.  Mr.  Sinclair  could  not 
conceal  the  admiration  he  felt  for  such  a  combination 
of  talents.  He  did  not  try  ;  he  accompanied  it  to  the 
door,  expanding  and  expanding  until  it  seemed  more 
than  ever  obvious  that  he  found  the  sub-editorial  sphere 
unreasonably  contracted.  Hilda  received  his  final 
bow  from  the  threshold  of  what  he  called  his  "  sanc- 
tum," and  had  hardly  left  the  landing  in  descent  when 
a  square-headed,  collarless,  red-faced  male  in  shirt- 
sleeves came  down,  descending,  as  it  seemed,  in 
bounds  from  parts  above.  "  Damn  it,  Sinclair,"  she 
heard  as  he  shot  into  the  apartment  she  had  left, 
**  here's  the  whole  council-meeting  report  set  up  and 
waiting  three-quarters  of  an  hour— press  blocked ;  and 
the  printer-Babu  says  he  can  get  nothing  out  of  you. 


HILDA. 


133 


.     If  the  dak's*  missed  again,  by 

paid    to   converse   with    itinerant 

seven    columns      .     .    .      infernal 


What  the  devil, 
thunder!     .    . 
females      .    , 
idiocy." 

Hilda  descended  in  safety  and  at  leisure,  reflecting 
with  some  amusement  as  she  made  her  way  down  that 
Mr.  Sinclair  was  doubtless  waiting  until  his  lady  visitor 
was  well  out  of  earshot  to  make  it  warm  for  the 
editor. 


•Country  post. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

I  FIND  myself  wondering  whether  Calcutta  would 
have  found  anything  very  exquisitely  amusing  in  the 
satisfactions  which  exchanged  themselves  between  Mr 
Llewellyn  Stanhope's  leading  lady  and  the  Reverend 
Stephen  Arnold,  had  it   been  aware   of  them,  and  I 
conclude  reluctantly  that  it  would  not.     Reluctantly 
because   such  imperviousness  argues  a   lack   of  per- 
ception, of  flair,  in  directions  which  any  continental 
centre  would  recognise  as  vastly  tickling,  regrettable 
in  a  capital  of  such   vaunted   sophistication    as  that 
which  sits  beside  the    Hooghly.     It  may  as  well   be 
shortly   admitted,    however,    that    to   stir  Calcutta's 
sense  of  comedy  you  must,  for  example,  attempt  to 
corner,  by  shortsightedness  or  faulty  technical    equip, 
ment,  a  civet  cat  in  a  jackal  hunt,  or,  coming  out  from 
England   to   assume  ofificial  duties,  you  must  take  a 
larger  view  of  your  dignities  than  the  clubs  are  ac- 
customed to  admit.     For  the  sex  that  does  not  hunt 
jackals   it   is   easier— you   have    only   to   be   a  little 
frivolous  and  Calcutta  will  invent  for  you  the   most 
side-shaking  nickname,  as  in  the  case  of  three  ladies 
known  in  a  viceroyalty  of  happy  legend  as  the  World 
the  Flesh  and  the  Devil.    I  should  be  sorry  to  give  the 
impression  that  Calcutta  is  therefore  a  place  of  gloom. 
The  source  of  these  things  is  perennial,  and  the  noise 
of  laughter  is  ever  in  the  air  of  the  Indian   capital. 


HILDA. 


135 


Between  the  explosions,  however,  it  is  natural  enough 
that  the  affairs  of  a  priest  of  College  street  and  an 
actress  of  no  address  at  all  should  slip  unnoticed, 
especially  as  they  did  not  advertise  it.  Stephen 
mostly  came,  on  afternoons  when  there  was  no  re- 
hearsal, to  tea.  He,  Stephen,  had  a  perception  of  con- 
trasts which  answered  fairly  well  the  purposes  of  a  sense 
of  humour,  and  nobody  could  question  hers ;  it 
operated  obscurely  to  keep  them  in  the  house. 

She  told  him  buoyantly  once  or  twice  that  he  had 
been  sent  to  her  to  take  the  place  of  Duff  Lindsay, 
who  had  fallen  to  the  snare  of  beauty,  although  she 
mentioned  herself  that  he  took  it  with  a  difference, 
a  vast  temperamental  difference  which  she  was  aware  of 
not  having  yet  quite  sounded.  The  depths  of  his  faith, 
of  course— there  she  could  only  scan  and  hesitate,  but 
this  was  a  brink  upon  which  she  did  not  often  find 
herself,  away  from  which,  indeed,  he  sometimes  gently 
guided  her.  The  atmospheres  of  their  talk  were  the 
more  bracing  ones  of  this  world,  and  it  was  here  that 
Hilda  looked  when  she  would  make  him  a  parallel  for 
Lindsay,  and  here  that  she  found  her  measure  of  dis- 
appointment. He  warmed  himself  and  dried  his  wings 
in  the  opulence  of  her  spirit,  and  she  was  not,  on  the 
whole,  the  poorer  by  any  exchange  they  made,  but  she 
was  sometimes  pricked  to  the  reflection  that  the  free- 
masonry between  them  was  all  hers,  and  the  things 
she  said  to  him  had  still  the  flavour  of  adventure.  She 
found  herself  inclined— and  the  experience  was  new — 
to  make  an  effort  for  a  reward  which  was  problematical 
and  had  to  be  considered  in  averages,  a  reward  put 
out  in  a  thin  and  hesitating  hand  under  a  sacerdotal 
robe,  with  a  curious,  concentrated  quality  and  a  strange 


136 


HILDA. 


flavour  of  incense  and  the  air  of  cold  churches.  There 
was  also  the  impression— was  it  too  fantastic — of  words 
carried  over  a  medium,  an  invisible  wire  which  brought 
the  soul  of  them  and  left  the  body  by  the  way.  Duff 
Lindsay,  so  eminently  responsive  and  calculable, 
came  running  with  open  arms ;  in  his  rejoiceful  eye- 
beam  one  saw  almost  a  midwife  to  one's  idea.  But 
the  comparison  was  subtly  irritating,  and  after  a  time 
she  turned  from  it.  She  awoke  once  in  the  night, 
moreover,  to  declare  to  the  stars  that  she  was  less 
worried  by  the  consideration  of  Arnold's  sex  than  she 
would  have  thought  it  possible  to  be — one  hardly 
paused  to  consider  that  he  was  a  man  at  all ;  a  reflection 
which  would  certainly  not  have  occurred  to  her  about 
poor  dear  Duff.  With  regard  to  Stephen  Arnold,  it 
was  only,  of  course,  another  way  of  saying  that  she 
was  less  oppressed,  in  his  company,  by  the  consider- 
ation of  her  own.  Perhaps  it  is  already  evident  that 
this  was  her  grievance  with  life,  when  the  joy  of  it  left 
her  time  to  think  of  a  grievance,  the  attraction  of  her 
personal  curves,  the  reason  of  the  hundred  fetiches 
her  body  claimed  of  her  and  found  her  willing  to 
perform ;  the  fact  that  it  meant  more  to  her,  for  all 
her  theories,  that  she  should  be  looking  her  best  when 
she  got  up  in  the  morning  than  was  justifiable  from 
any  point  of  view  except  the  biological.  She  had  no 
heroic  quarrel  with  these  conditions — her  experience 
had  not  been  upon  that  plan — but  she  bemoaned 
them  with  sincerity  as  too  fundamental,  too  all-per- 
vading ;  one  came  upon  them  at  every  turn,  grinning 
in  their  pretty  chains.  It  was  absurd,  she  construed, 
that  a  world  of  mankind  and  womankind  with  vastly 
interesting  possibilities  should  be  so  essentially  sub- 


HILDA. 


137 


jected  to  a  single  end.  So  primitive,  it  was,  she  argued 
in  her  vivid  candour,  and  so  interfering — so  horribly 
interfering !  Personally  she  did  not  see  herself  one  of 
the  fugitive  half  of  the  race ;  she  had  her  defences ; 
but  the  necessity  of  using  them  was  matter  for  com- 
plaint when  existence  might  have  been  so  delightful  a 
boon  without  it,  full  of  affinities  and  communities  in 
every  direction.  She  had  not,  I  am  convinced,  any  of 
the  notions  of  a  crusader  upon  this  popular  subject, 
nor  may  I  portray  her  either  shocked  or  revolted,  only 
rather  bored,  being  a  creature  whom  it  was  unkind  to 
hamper;  and  she  would  have  explained  quite  in  these 
simple  terms  the  reason  why  Stephen  Arnold's  saving 
neutrality  of  temperament  was  to  her  a  pervasive 
charm  of  his  society. 

She  had  not  yet  felt  at  liberty  to  tell  him  that  she 
could  not  classify  him,  that  she  had  never  known  any 
one  like  him  before  ;  and  there  was  in  this  no  doubt  a 
vague  perception  that  the  confession  showed  a  limita- 
tion of  experience  on  her  part  for  which  he  might  be 
inclined  to  call  her  to  account,  since  cultured  young 
Oxonians  with  an  altruistic  bias,  if  they  do  not  exactly 
abound,  are  still  often  enough  to  be  discovered  if  one 
happens  to  belong  to  the  sphere  which  they  haunt, 
they  and  their  ideals.  Not  that  any  such  considera- 
tion led  her  to  gloss  or  to  minimise  the  disabilities  of 
her  own.  She  sat  sometimes  in  gravest  wonder, 
pinching  her  lips,  and  watched  the  studiously  modi- 
fied interest  of  his  glance  following  her  into  its  queer 
by-ways— her  sphere's— full  of  spangles  and  lime- 
light,  and  the  first-class  hysteria  of  third-class  rival 
artistry.  There  was  a  fascination  in  bringing  him  out 
of  his  remoteness  near  to  those  things,  a  speculation 


'38  HILDA. 

ZratlfieH'?  1 '"  "^'^  ^^  "^'^^^  ^^-     ^his  remained 
ungratified,  for  he  never  did  anything.     He  only  let  it 

saTwLt^h       ""'  '^'^'"^^  ^'^"^  P°-^b^^  that  he 
saw  vyhat  she  saw,  peering  over  his  paling,  and  she  in 

the  picturesque  tangle  outside  found  it  enough 

He  was  there  when  she  came  back  from  the  Or.;//- 

c/e  office    patient  under  the  blue  umbrellas;  he  had 

brought  her  a  book,  and  they  had  told  him  she  vvould 

not  be  long  in  returning.     He  had  gone  so  far  as  to 

'Make  it '-T         '   '"'J'   "^^   ^^"^^^"^   '^'''^    ^^^-• 
Make  it      she  commanded;  "why  haven't  you  had 

some  already  .>"  and  while  he  bent  over  the  battered 
Britannia  metal  spout  she  sank  into  the  nearest  seat 
and  let  her  hat  make  a  frame  for  her  face  against  the 
back  of  It.  She  was  too  tired,  she  said,  to  move,  and 
her  hands  lay  extended,  one  upon  each  arm  of  her 
chair,  with  the  air  of  being  left  there  to  be  picked  up 
at  her  convenience.  Arnold,  over  the  tea-pot,  agreed 
that  walking  in  Calcutta  was  an  insidious  pleasure- 
one  gathered  a  lassitude-and  brought  her  cup.  She 
looked  at  him  for  an  instant  as  she  took  it. 

"  But  I  am  not  too  tired  to  hear  what  you  have  on 
your  mind,'-  she  said.  "  Have  Kally  Nath  Hitter's 
relations  prevailed  over  his  convictions  ?  Won't  your 
landlord  let  you  have  your  oratory  on  the  roof  after 

_  "You  get  these  things  so  out  of  perspective" 
Stephen  said,  "  that  I  don't  think  I  should  tell  you  if 
they  were  so.  But  they're  not.  Kally  Nath  is  to  be 
baptised  to-morrow.  We  are  certain  to  get  our 
oratory." 

"  I  am  very  glad,"  Hilda  interrupted.     "  When  one 
prays  for  so  long  a  time  together  it  must  be  better  to 


HILDA.  139 

have  fresh  air.  It  will  certainly  be  better  for  Brother 
Colquhoun.     He  seems  to  have  such  a  weak  chest." 

"  It  will  be  better  for  us  all."  Arnold  seemed  to 
reflect,  across  his  tea-cup,  how  much  better  it  would 
be.    Then  he  added,  "  I  saw  Lindsay  last  night." 

"  Again  ?    And " 

"  I  think  it  is  perfectly  hopeless.  I  think  he  is  mak- 
ing way." 

"  Sickening  !  I  hoped  you  would  not  speak  to  him 
again.  After  all — another  man — it's  naturally  of  no 
use!" 

"  I  spoke  as  a  priest !  " 

"  Did  he  swear  at  you  ?  " 

"  Oh  dear  no  !  He  was  rather  sympathetic.  And  I 
went  very  far.  But  I  could  get  him  to  see  nothing — 
to  feel  nothing." 

"  How  far  did  you  go  ?  " 

"I  told  him  that  she  was  consecrated,  that  he 
proposed  to  commit  sacrilege.  He  seemed  to  think 
he  could  make  it  up  to  her." 

"  If  anyone  else  had  said  that  to  me  I  should  have 
laughed — you  don't  suspect  the  irony  in  it,"  Hilda 
said.     "  Pray  who  is  to  make  it  up  to  him  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  there  is  that  point  cf  view." 

"  I  should  think  so,  indeed !  But  taking  it,  I 
despair  with  you.  I  had  her  here  the  other  day  and 
tried  to  make  the  substance  of  her  appear  before  him. 
I  succeeded,  too — he  gave  me  the  most  uncomfortable 
looks — but  I  might  as  well  have  let  it  alone.  The 
great  purpose  of  nature,"  Hilda  went  on,  putting 
down  her  cup,  "  reasonable  beings  in  their  normal 
state  would  never  lend  themselves  to.  So  she  invents 
these   temporary  insanities.    And   therein   is  nature 


HO  HILDA. 

cruel,  for  they  might  just  as  well  be  permanent. 
That  s  a  platitude,  I  know,"  she  added,  -  but  it's 
irresistibly  suggested." 

Stephen  looked  with  some  fixedness  at  a  point  on 
the  other  side  of  the  room.  The  platitude  brought 
him,  by  some  process  of  inversion,  the  vision  of  a 
drawing-room  in  Addison  gardens,  occupied  by  his 
mother  and  sisters,  engaged  with  whatever  may  be 
Kensington's  substitutes  at  the  moment  for  the  spinet 
and  the  tambour  frame;  and  he  had  a  disturbed  sense 
that  they  might  characterise  such  a  statement  differ- 
ently,  if,  mdeed,  they  would  consent  to  characterise  it 
at  all.  He  looked  at  the  wall  as  if,  being  a  solid  and 
steadfast  object,  it  might  correct  the  qualm—it  was 
really  something  like  that—which  the  wide  sweep  of 
her  cynicism  brought  him. 

"  From  what  he  told  me  last  week  I  thought  we 
shouldn't  see  it.  He  seemed  determined  enough,  but 
depressed  and  not  hopeful.  I  fancied  she  was  being 
upheld— I  thought  she  would  easily  pull  through.  In- 
deed, I  wasn't  sure  that  there  was  any  great  tempta- 
tion.    Somebody  must  be  helping  him." 

"The  Devil,  no  doubt,"    Hilda  replied,  concisely; 

"and  with  equal  certainty,  Miss  Ahcia  Livingstone."' 

Arnold  gave  her  a  look  of  surprise.     "Surely  not 

my  cousin  !  "  he  protested.     "  She  can't  understand." 

"Oh,  I  beg  of  you,  don't  speak   to  her!     I  think  " 
she  understands.     I  think  she's  only  too  tortuously  in- 
telligent." 

Stephen  kept  an  instant  of  nervous  silence.  "  May 
I  ask ?  "  he  began  formally. 

"  Oh,  yes!  It  is  almost  an  indecent  thing  to  say  of 
anyone  so  exquisitely  self-contained,  but  your  cousin 


HILDA. 


141 


is  very  much  in  love  with  Mr.  Lindsay  herself.  It 
seems  almost  a  liberty,  doesn't  it,  to  tell  you  such  a 
thing  about  a  member  of  your  family  ? "  she  went  on, 
at  Arnold's  blush ;  "  but  you  asked  me,  you  know. 
And  she  is  making  it  her  ecstatic  agony  to  bring  this 
precious  union  about.  I  think  she  is  taking  a  kinder- 
garten method  with  the  girl — having  her  there  con- 
stantly, and  showing  her  little  scented,  luxurious  bits 
of  what  she  is  so  possessed  to  throw  away.  People  in 
Alicia's  condition  have  no  sense  of  immorality." 

"  That  makes  it  all  the  more  painful,"  said  Arnold  ; 
but  the  interest  in  his  tone  was  a  little  remote,  and  his 
gesture,  too,  which  was  not  quite  a  shrug,  had  a  rele- 
gating  effect  upon  any  complication  between  Alicia 
and  Lindsay.  He  sat  for  a  moment  without  saying 
more,  covering  his  eyes  with  his  hand. 

"Why  should  you  care  so  much?"  Hilda  asked 
gently.  "You  are  at  the  very  antipodes  of  her  sect. 
You  can't  endorse  her  methods— you  don't  trust  her 
results." 

"  Oh,  all  that !  It's  of  the  least  consequence."  He 
spoke  with  a  curious,  governed  impulse  coming  from 
beneath  his  shaded  eyes.  *'  It's  seeing  another  ideal 
pulled  down,  gone  under,  something  that  held,  as  best 
it  could,  a  ray  from  the  source.  It's  another  glimpse 
of  the  strength  of  the  tide— terrible.  It's  a  cruel  hint 
that  one  lives  above  it  in  the  heaven  of  one's  own 
hopes,  by  some  mere  blind  accident.  To  have  set 
one's  feeble  hand  to  the  spiritualising  of  the  world, 
and  to  feel  the  possibility  of  that " 

"I  see,"  said  Hilda,  and  perhaps  she  did.  But  his 
words  oppressed  her.  She  got  up  with  a  movement 
which  almost  shook  them  off,  and  went  to  a  promiscu. 


H2  HILDA. 

ous  looking-glass  to  remove  her  hat.  She  was  re- 
freshed and  vivified— she  wanted  to  talk  of  the  warm 
world.  She  let  a  decent  interval  elapse,  however;  she 
waited  till  he  took  his  hand  from  his  eyes.  Even 
then,  to  make  the  transition  easier,  she  said,  "  You 
ought  to  be  lifted  up  to-day,  if  you  are  going  to  bap- 
tise Kally  Nath  to-morrow." 

"The  Brother  Superior  will  do  it.  And  I  don't 
know— I  don't  know.  The  young  woman  he  is  to 
marry  withdraws,  I  believe,  if  he  comes  over  to  us " 

"The  young  woman  he  is  to  marry!  Oh,  my  dear 
and  reverend  friend  !  Avcc  ccs  gens  Ih  /  I  have  had  a 
most  amusing  afternoon,"  she  went  on,  quickly.  "  I 
have  taken  off  my  hat,  now  let  me  remove  your  halo." 
She  was  safe  with  her  conceit ;  Arnold  would  always 
smile  at  any  imputation  of  saintship.  He  held  him- 
self a  person  of  broad  indulgences,  and  would  point 
openly  to  his  consumption  of  tea  cakes.  But  this 
afternoon  a  miasm  hung  over  him.  Hilda  saw  it  and 
bent  herself,  with  her  graphic  recital,  to  dispel  it,  per- 
ceived it  thicken  and  settle  down  upon  him,  and  went 
bravely  on  to  the  end.  Mr.  Macandrew  and  Mr. 
Molyneux  Sinclair  lived  and  spoke  before  him.  It 
was  comedy  enough,  in  essence,  to  spread  over  a 
matinee. 

"And  that  is  the  sort  of  thing  you  store  up  and 
value,"  he  said,  when  she  had  finished.  "These  per- 
sons will  add  to  your  knowledge  of  life." 

"  Extremely,"  she  replied  to  all  of  it. 

"  I  suppose  they  will  in  their  measure.  But  per- 
sonally I  could  wish  you  had  not  gone.  Your  work 
has  no  right  to  make  such  demands." 

"Be  reasonable,"  she  said,  flushing.     "Don't   talk 


HILDA. 


143 


as  if  personal  dignity  were  within  the  reach  of  every- 
body. It's  the  most  expensive  of  privileges.  And 
nothing  to  be  so  very  proud  of — generally  the  product 
of  somebody  else's  humiliations,  handed  down.  But 
the  humiliations  must  have  been  successful,  handed 
down  in  cash.  My  father  drove  a  cab  and  died  in 
debt.  His  name  was  Murphy.  I  shall  be  dignified 
some  day — some  day !  But  you  see  I  must  make  it 
possible  myself,  since  nobody  has  done  it  for  me." 

"  Well,  then,  I'll  alter  my  complaint.  Why  should 
you  play  with  your  sincerity  ?  " 

"  I  didn't  play  with  it,"  she  flashed  ;  "  I  abandoned 
it.     I  am  an  actress." 

They  often  permitted  themselves  such  candours; 
to  all  appearance  their  discussion  had  its  usual  equable 
quality,  and  I  am  certain  that  Arnold  was  not  even 
aware  of  the  tension  upon  his  nerves.  He  fidgeted 
with  the  tassel  of  his  ceinture,  and  she  watched  his 
moving  fingers.  Presently  she  spoke,  quietly,  in  a 
different  key. 

"I  sometimes  think,"  she  said,  " of  a  child  I  knew 
in  the  other  years.  She  had  the  simplest  nature,  the 
finest  instincts.  Her  impulses,  within  her  little  limits, 
were  noble — she  was  the  keenest,  loyalist  little  person ; 
her  admirations  rather  made  a  fool  of  her.  When  I 
look  at  the  woman  as  she  is  now  I  think  the  uses  of 
life  are  hard,  my  friend — they  are  hard." 

He  missed  the  personal  note  ;  he  took  what  she 
said  on  its  merits  as  an  illustration. 

"  And  yet,"  he  replied,  "  they  can  be  turned  to  ad- 
mirable purpose." 

*'  I  wonder  !  "  Hilda  exclaimed  brightly.  She  had 
turned  down  the  leaf  of  that  mood.     "  But  we  are  not 


144  HILDA. 

cheerful — let  us  be  cheerful.  For  my  part,  I  am  re- 
joicing  as  I  have  not  rejoiced  since  the  first  of  De- 
cember.    Look  at  this!  ** 

She  opened  a  small  black  leather  bag  and  poured 
money  out  of  it,  notes  and  currency,  into  her  lap. 

"  Is  it  a  legacy?" 

"  It's  pay,"  she  cried,  with  pleasure  dimpling  about 
her  lips.  "  I  have  been  paid — we  have  all  been  paid  ! 
It's  so  unusual — it  makes  me  feel  quite  generous.  Let 
me  see.  I'll  give  you  this,  and  this,  and  this" — she 
counted  into  her  open  palm  ten  silvt  'upees — "all 
those  I  will  give  you  for  your  mission.  Prends  I " 
and  she  clinked  them  together  and  held  them  out  to 
him. 

He  had  risen  to  go,  and  his  face  looked  grey  and 
small.  Something  in  him  had  mutinied  at  the  levity, 
the  quick  change  of  her  mood.  He  could  only  draw 
into  his  shell ;  doubtless  he  thought  that  a  legitimate 
and  inoffensive  proceeding. 

"Thanks,  no,"  he  said,  "  I  think  not.  We  desire 
people's  prayers,  rather  than  their  alms." 

He  went  away  immediately,  and  she  glossed  over 
his  scandalous  behaviour  and  said  farewell  to  him  as 
usual,  in  spite  of  the  unusual  look  of  consciousness  in 
her  eyes.  Then  she  went  to  her  room  and  deliber- 
ately loosened  her  garments  and  lay  down  upon  her 
bed,  first  to  sob  like  that  little  child  she  remembered, 
and  afterwards  to  think,  until  the  world  came  and 
knocked  at  her  door  and  bade  her  come  out  of  herself 
and  earn  money. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


The  compulsion  which  took  Stephen  Arnold  to 
Crooked  lane  is  hardly  ours  to  examine.  It  must  have 
been  strong,  since  going  up  to  Mrs.  Sand  involved 
certain  concessions,  doubtless  intrinsically  trifling, 
but  of  exaggerated  discomfort  to  the  mind  spiritually 
cloistered,  whatever  its  other  latitude.  Among  them 
was  a  distinctly  necessary  apology,  difficult  enough  to 
make  to  a  lady  of  rank  so  superior  and  authority  so 
voyant  in  the  Church  Militant,  by  a  mere  fighting  soul 
without  such  straps  and  buttons  as  might  compel 
recognition  upon  equal  terms.  It  is  impossible  to 
know  how  far  Stephen  envisaged  the  visit  as  a  duty — 
the  pricfitly  horizon  is  perhaps  not  wholly  free  from 
mirage — or  to  what  extent  he  confessed  it  an  indul- 
gence. He  was  certainly  aware  of  a  stronger  desire 
than  he  could  altogether  account  for  that  Captain 
Filbert  should  not  desert  her  post.  The  idea  had  an 
element  of  irritation  oddly  personal  ;  he  could  not 
bear  to  reflect  upon  it.  It  may  be  wondered  whether 
in  any  flight  of  venial  imagination  Arnold  saw  himself 
in  a  parallel  situation  with  a  lady.  I  am  sure  he  did 
not.  It  may  be  considered,  however,  that  among 
mirages  there  are  unaccountable  resemblances — re- 
semblances without  shape  or  form.  He  might  fix  his 
gaze,  at  all  events,  upon  the  supreme  argument  that 
those  who  were  given  to  holy  work,  under  any  condi- 


146 


HILDA. 


tion,  in  any  degree,  should  make  no  rededication  of 
themselves.  This  had  to  support  him  as  best  it  could 
against  the  conviction  that  had  Captain  Filbert  been 
Sister  Anastasia,  for  example,  of  the  Baker  Institu- 
tion, and  Ensign  Sand  the  Mother  Superior  of  its 
Calcutta  branch,  it  was  improbable  that  he  would 
have  ventured  to  announce  his  interest  in  the  matter 
by  his  card,  or  In  any  other  way. 

It  was  a  hesitating  step,  therefore,  that  carried  him 
up  to  the  quarters,  and  a  glance  of  some  nervous  dis- 
tress that  made  him  aware,  as  he  stood  bowing  upon 
her  threshold,  clasping  with  both  hands  his  soft  felt 
hat  to  his  breast,  that  Mrs.  Sand  was  not  displeased 
to  see  him.  She  hastened,  indeed,  to  give  him  a  chair ; 
she  said  she  was  very  glad  he'd  dropped  in,  if  he 
dir'n't  mind  the  room  being  so  untidy — where  there 
were  children  you  could  spend  the  whole  day  picking 
up.  They  were  out  at  present,  with  Captain  Sand,  in 
the  perambulator — not  having  more  servants  than 
they  could  help.  A  sweeper  and  a  cook  they  did 
with ;  it  would  surprise  the  people  in  this  country,  who 
couldn't  get  along  with  less  than  twenty,  she  often  said. 

Mrs.  Sand's  tone  was  casual;  her  manner  had  a 
quality  somewhat  aggressively  democratic.  It  said 
that  under  her  welcome  lay  the  right  to  criticise, 
which  she  would  have  exercised  with  equal  freedom 
had  her  visitor  been  the  Lord  Bishop  John  Calcutta 
himself ;  and  it  made  short  work  of  the  idea  that  she 
might  be  over-gratified  to  receive  Holy  Orders  in  any 
form.  She  was  not  unwilling,  however,  to  show,  as 
between  Ensign  and  man,  reasonable  satisfaction ; 
presently,  in  fact,  she  went  so  far  as  to  say,  still 
vaguely  remarking  upon  his  appearance  there,  that 


HILDA. 


147 


she  often  thought  there  ought  to  be  more  sociability 
between  the  different  religious  bodies;  it  would  be 
better  for  the  cause.  There  was  nothing  narrow,  she 
said,  about  her,  nor  yet  about  Captain  Sand.  And 
then,  with  the  distinct  intimation  that  that  would  do, 
that  she  had  gone  far  enough,  she  crossed  her  hands 
in  her  lap  and  waited.  It  became  her  to  have  it  un- 
derstood this  visit  need  have  no  further  object  than  an 
exchange  of  amiabilities  ;  but  there  might  be  another, 
and  Mrs.  Sand's  folded  hands  seemed  to  indicate  that 
she  would  not  necessarily  meet  it  with  opposition. 

Stephen  made  successive  statements  of  assent.  He 
sat  grasping  his  hat  between  his  knees,  his  eyes  fixed 
upon  an  infant's  sock  which  lay  upon  the  floor  immedi- 
ately in  front  of  him,  looking  at  Mrs.  Sand  as  seldom 
and  as  briefly  as  possible,  as  if  his  glance  took  rather 
an  unfair  advantage,  which  he  would  spare  her. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  he  said.  "  Yes,  certainly,"  revolving 
his  hat  in  his  hands.  And  when  she  spoke  of  the 
fraternity  that  might  be  fostered  by  surh  visits,  he 
looked  for  an  instant  as  if  he  had  found  an  opening, 
which  seemed,  however,  to  converge  and  vanish  in  Mrs. 
Sand's  folded  hands.  He  flushed  to  think  afterwards, 
that  it  was  she  who  was  obliged  to  bring  his  resolution 
to  a  head,  her  scent  of  his  embarrassment  sharpening 
her  curiosity. 

"  And  is  there  anything  we  Army  officers  can  do 
for  you,  Mr.  Arnold  ?  "  she  inquired. 

There  was  a  hint  in  her  voice  that,  whatever  it  was, 
they  would  have  done  it  more  willingly  if  she  had  not 
been  obliged  to  ask. 

"  I  am  afraid,"  he  said  ;  "  my  mission  is  not  quite  so 
simple.     I  could  wish  it  were.     It  is  so  easy  to  show 


148  HILDA. 

our  poor  needs  to  one  another ;  and  I  should  have  con- 
fidence  "  he  paused,  amazed  at  the  duplicity  that 

grinned  at  him  in  his  words.  At  what  point  more  re- 
mote within  the  poles  was  he  likely  to  show  himself 
with  a  personal  request  ? 

"  I  have  nothing  to  ask  for  myself,"  he  went  on, 
with  concentration  almost  harsh.  "  I  am  here  to  see 
if  you  will  consent  to  speak  with  me  about  a  matter 
which  threatens  your — your  conimunity — about  your 
possible  loss  of  Miss  Filbert." 

Mrs.  Sand  looked  blank.  "  The  Captain  isn't  leavin* 
us,  as  far  as  I  know,"  she  said. 

"  Oh— is  it  possible  that  you  are  not  aware  that — 
that  very  strong  efforts  are  being  made  to  induce  her 
to  do  so?" 

Mrs.  Sand  looked  about  her  as  if  she  expected  to 
find  an  explanation  lying  somewhere  near  her  chair. 
Light  came  to  her  suddenly  and  brought  her  a  con- 
scious smile  ;  it  only  lacked  force  to  be  a  giggle.  She 
glanced  at  her  lap  as  she  smiled  ;  her  air  was  depre- 
cating and  off-putting,  as  if  she  had  detected  in  what 
Arnold  said  some  suggestion  of  a  gallant  nature  aimed 
at  herself.     Happily,  he  was  not  looking. 

"You  mean  Mr.  Lindsay,"  she  exclaimed,  twisting 
her  wedding-ring  and  its  coral  guard. 

"  I  hope — I  beg— that  you  will  not  think  me  med- 
dlesome or  impertinent.  I  have  the  matter  very  much 
at  heart.  It  seems  to  lie  in  my  path.  I  must  see  it. 
Surely  you  perceive  some  way  of  averting  the  disaster 
in  it!" 

**  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  what  you  refer  to."  Mrs. 
Sand's  tone  was  prudish  and  offended.  "  She  hasn't 
said  a  word  to  me — she's  a  great   one   for  keeping 


HILDA. 


149 


things  to  herself — but  if  Mr.  Lindsay  don't  mean  mar- 
riage with  her " 

"  Why,  of  course  ! "  Arnold,  startled,  turned  furi- 
ously red,  but  Mrs.  Sand  in  her  indignation  did  not 
reflect  the  tint.  "  Of  course !  Is  not  that,"  he  went 
on  after  an  instant's  pause,  *'  precisely  what  is  to  be 
lamented — and  prevented?" 

Mrs.  Sand  looked  at  her  visitor  with  dry  suspicion. 
"  I  suppose  you  are  a  friend  of  his,"  she  said. 

"  I  have  known  him  for  years.  Pray  don't  mis- 
understand me.  There  is  nothing  against  him — noth- 
ing whatever." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  suppose  there  is,  except  that  he  is  not 
on  the  Lord's  side.  But  I  don't  expect  any  of  his 
friends  are  anxious  for  him  to  marry  an  officer  in  the 
Salvation  Army.  Society  people  ain't  fond  of  the 
Army,  and  never  will  be." 

"  His  people — he  has  only  distant  relatives  living — 
are  all  at  home,"  Stephen  said,  vaguely.  The  situa- 
tion had  become  slightly  confused. 

"  Then  you  speak  for  them,  I  suppose." 

"  Indeed  not.  I  am  in  no  communication  with 
them  whatever.  I  fancy  they  know  nothing  about  it. 
I  am  here  entirely — entirely  of  my  own  accord.  I 
have  come  to  place  myself  at  your  disposition  if  there 
is  anything  I  can  do,  any  word  I  can  say,  to  the  end 
of  preventing  this  catastrophe  in  a  spiritual  life  so 
pure  and  devoted  ;  to  ask  you  at  all  events  to  let 
me  join  my  prayers  to  yours  that  it  shall  not  come 
about." 

The  squalor  of  the  room  seemed  to  lift  before  his 
eyes  and  be  suffused  with  light.  At  last  he  had  made 
himself  plain.     But  Mrs.  Sand  was  not  transfigured. 


t 

il 

I 


150  HILDA. 


f' 

II 
.1 


She  seemed  to  sit,  with  her  hands  folded,  in  the  midst 
I  of  a  calculation. 

"  Then  he  /tas  proposed.  I  told  her  he  would,"  she 
said. 

"  I  believe  he  has  asked  her  to  marry  him  and  she 
has  refused,  more  than  once.  But  he  is  importunate, 
and  I  hear  she  needs  help." 

♦*  Mr.  Lindsay,"  said  Mrs.  Sand,  "  is  a  very  takin* 
young  man." 

"  I  suppose  we  must  consider  that.  There  is  posi- 
tion, too,  and  wealth.  These  things  count — we  are  all 
so  human— even  against  the  Divine  realities  into  pos- 
session of  which  Miss  Filbert  must  have  so  perfectly 
entered." 

"  I  thought  he  must  be  pretty  well  off.    Would  he 
be  one  of  them  Government  officials  ?  " 
"He  is  a  broker." 

"Oh,  is  he  indeed?"  Mrs.  Sand's  enlightenment 
was  evidently  doubtful.  "  Well,  if  they  get  married 
Captain  Filbert  '11  have  to  resign.  It's  against  the 
regulations  for  her  to  marry  outside  of  the  Army." 

"  But  is  she  not  vowed  to  her  work ;  isn't  her  life 
turned  forever  into  that  channel  ?  Would  jt  not  be 
horrible  to  you  to  see  the  world  interfere  ?  " 

"  I  won't  say  but  what  I'd  be  sorry  to  see  her  leave 
us.  But  I  wouldn't  stand  in  her  way  either,  and 
neither  would  Captain  Sand." 

"  Stand  in  her  way  !  In  her  way  to  material  luxury, 
poverty  of  spirit,  the  shirking  of  all  the  high  alterna- 
tives, the  common  moral  mediocrity  of  the  world.  I 
would  to  God  I  could  be  that  stumbling  block!  I 
have  heard  her— I  have  seen  the  light  in  her  that  may 
so  possibly  be  extinguished  * 


HILDA.  151 

"  I  don't  deny  she  has  a  kind  of  platform  gift,  but 
she's  losin'  her  voice.  And  she  doesn't  understand 
briskin'  people  up,  if  you  know  what  I  mean." 

"She  will  be  pulled  down — she  will  go  under!" 
Arnold  repeated  in  the  depths  of  his  spirit.  He  stood 
up,  fumbling  with  his  hat.  Mrs.  Sand  and  her  apart- 
ment, her  children  out  of  doors  in  the  perambulator, 
and  the  whole  organisation  to  which  she  appertained, 
had  grown  oppressive  and  unnecessary.  He  was 
aware  of  a  supreme  desire  to  put  his  foot  again  in  his 
own  world,  where  things  were  seen,  were  understood. 
He  thought  there  might  be  solace  in  relating  the 
affair  to  Brother  Colquhoun. 

"  It's  a  case,"  said  Mrs.  Sand,  judicially,  "  where  I 
wouldn't  think  myself  called  on  to  say  one  word. 
Such  things  everyone  has  a  right  to  decide  for  them- 
selves. But  you  oughtn't  to  forget  that  a  married 
woman  " — she  looked  at  Arnold's  celibate  habit  as  if 
to  hold  it  accountable  for  much — "can  have  a  great 
influence  for  good  over  him  that  she  chooses.  I  am 
pretty  sure  Captain  Filbert's  already  got  Mr.  Lindsay 
almost  persuaded.  I  shouldn't  be  at  all  surprised  if 
he  joined  the  Army  himself  when  she's  had  a  good 
chance  at  him." 

Arnold  put  on  his  hat  with  a  groan  and  began  the 
descent  of  the  stairs.  "  Good-afternoon,  then,"  Mrs. 
Sand  called  out  to  him  from  the  top.  He  turned 
mechanically  and  bared  his  head.  "  I  beg  your  par- 
don," he  said,  **  Good-afternoon." 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Mrs.  Sand  found  it  difficult  to  make  up  her  mind 
upon  several  points  touching  the  visit  of  the  Reverend 
Stephen  Arnold.  Its  purport,  of  which  she  could  not 
deny  her  vague  appreciation,  drew  a  cloud  across  a 
rosy  prospect,  and  in  this  light  his  conduct  showed  un- 
pardonable ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  implied  a  compli- 
ment to  the  corps,  it  made  the  spiritual  position  of  an 
officer  of  the  Army,  a  junior  too,  a  matter  of  moment 
in  a  wider  world  than  might  be  suspected ;  and  before 
this  consideration  Mrs.  Sand  expanded.  She  reflected 
liberally  that  salvation  was  not  necessarily  frustrated 
by  the  laying-on  of  hands ;  she  had  serene  fancies  of 
a  republic  of  the  redeemed.  She  was  a  prey  to  further 
hesitations  regarding  the  expediency  of  mentioning 
the  interview  to  Laura,  and  as  private  and  confiden- 
tial it  ministered  for  two  days  to  her  satisfactions  of 
superior  officer.  In  the  end,  however,  she  had  to 
sacrifice  it  to  the  girl's  imperturbable  silence.  She 
chose  an  intimate  and  a  private  hour  and  shut  the 
door  carefully  upon  herself  and  her  captain,  but  she 
had  not  at  all  decided,  when  she  sat  down  on  the  edge 
of  the  bed,  what  complexion  to  give  to  the  matter, 
nor  had  she  a  very  definite  idea,  when  she  got  up 
again,  of  what  complexion  she  had  given  it.  Laura, 
from  the  first  word,  had  upset  her  by  an  intense  eager- 
ness, a  determination  not  to  lose  a  syllable.    Captain 


HILDA.  153 

Filbert  insisted  upon  hearing  all  before  she  would  ac- 
knowledge anything ;  she  hung  upon  the  sentences 
Mrs.  Sand  repeated,  and  joined  them  together  as  if 
they  were  parts  of  a  puzzle ;  she  finally  had  possession 
of  the  conversation  much  as  I  have  already  written  it 
down.  As  Mrs.  Sand  afterward  told  her  husband, 
Miss  Filbert  sat  there  growing  whiter  and  whiter, 
more  and  more  worked  up,  and  it  was  impossible  to 
take  any  comfort  in  talking  to  her.  It  seemed  as  if 
she,  the  Ensign,  might  save  herself  the  trouble  of  giv- 
ing an  opinion  one  way  or  the  other,  and  not  a  thing 
could  she  get  the  girl  to  say  except  that  it  was  true 
enough  that  the  gentleman  wanted  to  marry  her,  and 
she  was  ashamed  of  having  let  it  go  so  far.  But  she 
would  never  do  it — never.  She  declared  she  would 
write  to  this  Mr.  Arnold  and  thank  him,  and  ask  him 
to  pray  for  her,  "  and  she  as  much  as  ordered  me  to  go 
and  do  the  same,"  concluded  Mrs.  Sand  with  an  inflec- 
tion which  made  its  own  comment  upon  such  a  subver- 
sion of  discipline. 

Stephen,  under  uncomfortable  compulsion,  sent 
Laura's  letter — she  did  write — to  Lindsay.  "  I  can- 
not allow  you  to  be  in  the  dark  about  what  I  am  doing 
in  the  matter,"  he  explained ;  "  though  if  I  had  not 
this  necessity  for  writing  you  might  reasonably  com- 
plain of  an  intrusive  and  impertinent  letter.  But  I 
must  let  you  know  that  she  has  appealed  to  me,  and 
that  as  far  as  I  can  I  will  help  her." 

Duff  read  both  communications — Laura's  to  the 
priest  was  brief  and  very  technical — between  the  busi- 
ness quarters  of  Ralli  Brothers  and  the  Delhi  and 
London  Bank,  with  his  feet  in  the  opposite  seat  of  his 
office-gharry  and  his  forehead  puckered  by  an  immedi- 


154 


HILDA. 


ate  calculation  forward  in  rupee  paper.  His  irritation 
spoiled  his  transaction — there  was  a  distinct  edge  in 
the  manager's  manner  when  they  parted,  and  it  was 
perhaps  a^  pardonable  weakness  that  led  him  to  dash 
in  blue  pencil  across  the  page  covered  with  Arnold's 
minute  handwriting,  *'  Then  you  have  done  with  pasty 
compromises — you  have  gone  over  to  the  Jesuits.  I 
congratulate  you,"  and  re-addressed  the  envelope  to 
College  street.  The  brown  tide  of  the  crowd  brought 
him  an  instant  messenger,  and  he  stood  in  the  door- 
way for  a  moment  afterwards  frowning  upon  the  yel- 
low turbans  that  swung  along  in  the  sunlight  against 
the  white  wall  opposite,  across  the  narrow  commercial 
road.  The  flame  of  his  indignation  set  forth  his  fea- 
tures with  definiteness  and  relief,  consuming  altogether 
the  soft  amused  bien-itre  which  was  nearly  always 
there.  His  lips  set  themselves  together,  and  Mrs. 
Sand  would  have  been  encouraged  in  any  scheme  of 
practical  utility  by  the  lines  that  came  about  his 
mouth.  A  brother  in  finance  of  some  astuteness,  who 
saw  him  scramble  into  his  gharry,  divined  that  with 
regard  to  a  weighty  matter  in  jute-mill  shares  pend- 
ing, Lindsay  had  decided  upon  a  coup^  and  made  his 
arrangements  accordingly.  He  also  went  upon  his 
way  with  a  fresh  impression  of  Lindsay's  undeniable 
good  looks,  as  sometimes  in  a  coin  new  from  the  mint 
one  is  struck  with  the  beauty  of  a  die  dulled  by  use 
and  familiarity. 

Stephen  Arnold,  receiving  his  answer,  composed 
himself  to  feel  distress,  but  when  he  had  read  it,  that 
emotion  was  somewhat  lightened  in  him  by  another 
sentiment. 

"  A  community  admirable  in  many  ways,"  he  mur- 


HILDA.  155 

mured,  refolding  the  page.     "  Does  he  think  he  is  in- 
sulting me! " 

Whatever  degree  of  influence,  Jesuitical  or  other, 
Lindsay  was  inclined  to  concede  to  Stephen's  inter- 
mediary, he  was  compelled  to  recognise  without  delay 
that  Captain  Filbert,  in  the  exercise  of  her  profession, 
had  not  neglected  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  defensive 
operations.  She  retired  effectively  into  camp ;  the 
quarters  in  Crooked  lane  became  her  fortified  retreat, 
whence  she  issued  only  under  escort  and  upon  service 
strictly  obligatory.  Succour  from  Arnold  doubtless 
reached  her  by  the  post ;  and  Lindsay  felt  it  an  anom- 
aly in  military  tactics  that  the  same  agency  should 
bring  back  upon  him  with  a  horrid  recoil  the  letters 
with  which  he  strove  to  assault  her  position.  Nor 
could  Alicia  induce  any  sortie  to  Middleton  street. 
Her  notes  of  invitation  to  quiet  teas  and  luncheons 
were  answered  on  blue-lined  paper,  the  pen  dipped  in 
reticence  and  the  palest  ink,  always  with  the  negative 
of  a  formal  excuse.  They  loosed  the  burden  of  her 
complicity  from  Miss  Livingstone's  shoulders,  these 
notes  which  bore  so  much  the  atmosphere  of  Crooked 
lane,  and  at  the  same  time  they  formed  the  indictment 
against  her  which  was,  perhaps,  best  calculated  to 
weigh  upon  her  conscience.  She  saw  it,  holding  them 
at  arm's  length,  in  enormous  characters  that  ever 
stamped  and  blotted  out  the  careful,  taught-looking 
writing,  and  the  invariable  "  God  bless  you,  yours 
truly,"  at  the  end.  They  were  all  there,  aridly  com- 
plete, the  limitations  of  the  lady  to  whom  she  was 
helping  Lindsay  to  bind  himself  without  a  gleam  of  pos- 
sibility of  escape  or  a  rift  through  which  tiniest  hope 
could  creep  to  emerge  smiling  upon  the  other  side. 


156  HILDA. 

When  she  saw  him,  in  fatalistic  reverie,  going  about 
ten  years  hence  attached  to  the  body  of  this  petrifac- 
tion, she  was  almost  satisfied  to  abandon  the  pair,  to 
let  them  take  their  wretched  chance.  But  this  was  a 
climax  which  did  not  occur  often  ;  she  returned,  in 
most  of  her  waking  moments,  to  devising  schemes  by 
which  Laura  might  be  delivered  into  the  hands  she 
was  so  likely  to  encufnber.  The  new  French  poet,  the 
American  novelist  of  the  year,  and  a  work  by  Mr.  John 
Morley  lay  upon  Alicia's  table  many  days  together  for 
this  reason.  She  sometimes  remembered  what  she  ex- 
pected of  these  volumes,  what  plein  air  sensations,  or 
what  profound  plunges,  and  did  not  quite  like  her  in- 
difference as  to  whether  her  expectations  were  fulfilled. 
She  discovered  herself  intellectually  jaded — there  had 
been  tiring  excursions — and  took  to  daily  rides  which 
carried  her  far  out  among  the  rice-fields,  and  gave  her 
sound  nights  to  sustain  the  burden  of  her  dreaming 
days.  She  had  ideas  about  her  situation  ;  she  believed 
she  lived  outside  of  it.  At  all  events,  she  took  a  line ; 
the  new  Arab  was  typical,  and  there  were  other  meas- 
ures which  she  arranged  deliberately  with  the  idea 
that  she  was  making  a  physical  fight.  Life  might 
weigh  one  down  with  a  dragging  ball  and  chain,  but 
one  could  always  measure  the  strength  of  one's 
opinions  against  these  things.  She  made  it  her  sorry 
and  remorseless  task  to  separate  from  her  impulses 
those  that  she  found  lacking  in  philosophy,  hinting  of 
the  foolish  woman,  and  to  turn  a  cruel  heel  upon 
them.  She  stripped  her  meditations  of  all  colour  and 
atmosphere ;  she  would  not  accept  from  her  grief  the 
luxury  of  a  rag  to  wrap  herself  in.  If  this  gave  her  a 
skeleton  to  live  with,  she  had  what  gratification  there 


HILDA.  157 

was  in  observing  that  it  was  anatomically  as  it  should  be. 
The  result  that  one  saw  from  the  outside  was  chiefly 
a  look  of  delicate  hardness,  of  tissue  a  little  frayed,  but 
showing  a  quality  in  the  process.  We  may  hope  that 
some  unconfessed  satisfaction  was  derivable  from  her 
continued  reception  of  Duff's  confidences,  her  unflinch- 
ing readiness  to  consult  with  him  ;  granting  the  ana- 
lytic turn  we  may  almost  suppose  it.  Starvation  is  so 
monotonous  a  misery  that  a  gift  of  personal  diagnosis 
might  easily  lend  attraction  to  poisoned  food  as  an 
alternative,  if  one  may  be  permitted  a  melodramatic 
simile  in  a  case  which  Alicia  kept  conventional  enough. 
She  did  not  even  abate  the  usual  number  of  Duff's  in- 
vitations to  dinner,  when  there  was  certainly  nothing 
to  repay  her  for  regarding  him  across  a  gulf  of  flowers 
and  silver  and  a  tide  of  conversation  about  the  season's 
paper-chasing  except  the  impoverished  complexion 
which  people  acquire  who  sit  much  in  Bentinck  street, 
desirous  and  unsatisfied. 

It  may  very  well  be  that  she  regretted  her  be- 
haviour in  this  respect,  for  it  was  effectively  after  one 
of  these  parties  that  Surgeon-Major  Livingstone,  press- 
ing upon  his  departing  guest  in  the  hall  the  usual 
whiskey  and  soda,  found  it  necessary  instead  to  give 
him  another  kind  of  support,  and  to  put  him  im- 
mediately and  authoritatively  to  bed.  Lindsay  was 
very  well  content  to  submit ;  he  confessed  to  fever  off 
and  on  for  four  and  five  days  past,  and  while  the  world 
went  round  the  pivotal  staircase,  as  Dr.  Livingstone 
gave  him  an  elbow  up,  he  was  indistinctly  convinced 
that  the  house  of  a  friend  was  better  than  a  shelf  at 
the  club.  The  next  evening's  meeting  saw  his  place 
empty  under  the  window  of  the  hall  in  Crooked  lane, 


158  HILDA. 

noticeably  for  the  first  time  in  weeks  of  these  ex- 
ercises. The  world  shrank,  for  Laura,  to  the  compass 
of  the  kerosene  lamps;  there  was  no  gaze  from  its 
wider  sphere  against  which  she  must  key  herself  to  in- 
difference. When  on  the  second  and  third  evenings 
she  was  equally  undisturbed,  it  was  borne  in  upon  her 
that  either  she  or  Mr.  Arnold,  or  both,  had  prevailed, 
and  she  offered  up  thanks.  On  the  fourth  she  re- 
flected recurrently  and  anxiously  that  it  was  not  after 
all  a  very  glorious  victory  if  the  Devil  had  carried  off 
the  wounded ;  if  Lindsay,  after  all  the  opportunities 
that  had  been  his,  should  slip  back  without  profit  to 
the  level  from  which  she  had  striven — they  had  all 
striven — to  lift  him.  Mrs.  Sand,  not  satisfied  to  be 
buffeted  by  such  speculations,  sent  a  four-anna  bit  to 
the  head  bearer  at  the  club  on  her  own  account  and 
obtained  information. 

Alicia  saw  no  immediate  privilege  in  the  complica- 
tion, though  the  circumstances  taken  together  did 
present  a  vulgar  opportunity  which  Mrs.  Barberry 
came  for  hours  to  take  advantage  of.  There  were  the 
usual  two  nurses  as  well  as  Mrs.  Barberry  ;  Alicia 
could  take  the  Arab  further  afield  than  ever,  and  she 
did.  One  can  imagine  her  cantering  fast  and  far  with 
a  sense  of  conscious  possession  in  spite  of  Mrs.  Bar- 
berry and  the  two  nurses.  There  may  be  a  certain 
solace  in  the  definite  and  continuous  knowledge  avail- 
able about  a  person  hovering  on  the  brink  of  typhoid 
under  your  own  roof  tree.  It  was  as  grave  as  that ; 
Surgeon-Major  Livingstone  could  not  make  up  his 
mind.  Alicia  knew  only  of  this  uncertainty ;  other 
satisfactions  were  reserved  for  the  nurses  and  Mrs. 
Barberry.     She  could  see  that  her  brother  was  anxious, 


HILDA.  159 

he  was  so  uniformly  cheerful,  so  brisk  and  fresh  and 
good-tempered  coming  from  Lindsay's  room  in  the 
morning,  to  say  at  breakfast  that  the  temperature  was 
the  same,  liadn't  budged  a  point,  must  manuge  to  get 
it  down  somehow  in  the  next  twenty-four  hours,  and 
forthwith  to  envelop  himself  in  the  newspapers. 
Those  arbitrary  and  obstinate  figures,  which  stood  for 
apprehension  to  the  most  casual  ear,  stamped  them- 
selves on  most  things  as  the  day  wore  on,  and  at  tea- 
time  Mrs.  Harbcrry  gave  her  other  details,  thinking 
her  rather  cold  in  the  reception  of  them.  But  she 
plainly  preferred  to  be  out  of  it,  avoiding  the  nurses 
on  the  stairs,  refraining  from  so  much  as  a  glance  at 
the  boiled-milk  preparations  of  the  butler.  "And  you 
know,"  said  Mrs.  Barberry,  recountant,  *'  how  these 
people  have  to  be  watched."  To  Mrs.  Barberry  she 
was  really  a  conundrum,  only  to  be  solved  on  the 
theory  of  a  perfectly  preposterous  delicacy.  There 
was  so  little  that  was  preposterous  in  Miss  Living- 
stone's conduct  as  a  rule  that  it  is  not  quite  fair  to 
explain  her  attitude  either  by  this  exaggeration  or  by 
an  equally  hectic  scruple  about  her  right  to  take  care 
of  her  guest,  such  a  right  dwindling  curiously  when  it 
has  been  given  in  the  highest  to  somebody  else. 
These  pangs  and  penalties  may  have  visited  her  in 
their  proportion,  but  they  did  not  take  the  im- 
portance of  motives.  She  rather  stood  aside  with 
folded  hands,  and  in  an  infinite  terror  of  prejudicing 
fate,  devoured  her  heart  by  way  of  keeping  its  beating 
normal.  Perhaps,  too,  she  had  a  vision  of  a  final  al- 
ternative to  Lindsay's  marriage,  and  one  can  imagine 
her  forcing  herself  to  look  at  it. 

Remove  herself  as  she  chose,  Alicia  could  not  avoid 


i6o 


HILDA. 


passing  Lindsay's  room,  for  her  own  lay  beyond  it. 
In  the  seven  o'clock  half  light  of  a  February  evening, 
in  the  middle  of  the  week,  she  went  along  the  matted 
upper  hall  on  tip-toe,  and  stumbled  over  a  veiled  form 
squatted  in  the  native  way,  near  his  door,  profoundly 
asleep.  "  Ayah  !  "  she  exclaimed,  but  the  face  that 
looked  confusedly  up  at  her  was  white,  whiter  than 
common,  Captain  Filbert's  face.  Alicia  drew  her 
hand  away  and  made  an  imperceptible  movement  in 
the  direction  of  her  skirts.  She  stood  silent,  stricken 
in  the  dusk  with  fear  and  wonder,  but  the  sense  that 
was  strongest  in  her  was  plainly  that  of  having  made 
a  criminal  discovery.  Laura  stumbled  upon  her  feet, 
and  the  two  faced  each  other  for  an  instant ;  words 
held  from  them  equally  by  the  authority  of  the  sick- 
room door.  Then  Alicia  beckoned  as  imperiously  as 
if  the  other  had  in  fact  been  the  servant  she  took  her 
for,  and  Laura  followed  to  where,  further  on,  a  bed- 
room door  stood  open,  which  presently  closed  upon 
them  both.  It  was  a  spacious  room,  with  pale,  high- 
hung  draperies,  a  scent  of  flowers,  such  things  as  an 
etching  of  Greuze,  an  ivory  and  ebon  crucifix  over  the 
bed.  Captain  Filbert  remembered  the  crucifix  after- 
ward with  a  feeling  almost  intense,  also  some  silver- 
backed  brushes  on  the  toilet  table.  Across  the  open 
window  a  couple  of  bars  of  sunset  glowed  red  and 
gold,  and  a  tall  palm  of  the  garden  cut  all  its  fronds 
sharply  against  the  light. 

"  Well  ?  "  said  Alicia,  when  the  door  was  shut. 

Captain  Filbert  put  out  a  deprecating  hand. 

"  I  intended  to  ask  if  you  had  any  objection,  miss, 
but  you  had  gone  out.  And  the  nurse  was  in  the 
room  ;  I  couldn't  get  to  her.  There  was  nobody  but 
the  servants  about." 


HILDA. 


i6i 


"  Objection  to  what  ?  " 

"  To  my  being  there.  I  came  to  pray  for  Mr.  Lind- 
say." 

"  Did  you  make  any  noise  ?  " 

Miss  Filbert  looked  professionally  touched.  "It 
was  silent  prayer,  of  course,"  she  said. 

Alicia,  standing  with  one  hand  upon  the  toilet  table, 
had  an  air  of  eagerness,  of  successful  capture.  The 
yellow  sky  in  the  window  behind  her  made  filmy 
lights  round  her  hair  and  outlined  her  tall  figure  in 
the  gracefulness  of  which  there  was  a  curious  crisped 
effect,  like  a  conventional  pose  taken  easily,  from 
habit.  Laura  Filbert  thought  she  looked  like  a  prin- 
cess. 

"  I  seem  to  hear  of  nothing  but  petitions,"  she  said. 
"  Isn't  somebody  praying  for  you  ?  " 

The  blood  of  any  saint  would  have  risen  in  false 
testimony  at  such  a  suggestion.  Laura  blushed  so 
violently  that  for  an  instant  the  space  between  them 
seemed  full  of  the  sound  of  her  protest. 

"  I  hope  so,  miss,"  she  said,  and  looked  as  if  for 
calming  over  Alicia's  shoulder  away  into  the  after- 
sunset  bars  along  the  sky.  The  colour  sank  back  out 
of  her  face,  and  the  light  from  the  window  rested  on  it 
etherealb  The  beautiful  mystery  drew  her  eyes  to 
seek,  and  their  blue  seemed  to  deepen  and  dilate,  as 
if  the  old  splendour  of  the  uplifted  golden  gates  re- 
warded them. 

"Why  do  you  use  that  odious  word  ?"  Alicia  ex- 
plained. "  You  are  not  my  maid !  Don't  do  it  again 
— don't  dream  of  doing  it  again  !  " 

"  I — I  don't  know."  The  girl  was  still  plainly  cov- 
ered with  confusion  at  being  found  in  the  house  unin- 


i62  HILDA. 

vited.  "  I  suppose  I  forget.  Well,  good  -vening,"  and 
she  turned  to  the  door. 

"  Don't  go,"  Alicia  commanded.  *'  Don't.  You 
never  come  to  see  me  now.  Sit  down."  She  dragged 
a  chair  forward  and  almost  pushed  Laura  into  it.  "  I 
will  sit  down,  too — what  am  I  thinking  of?" 

Laura  reflected  for  a  moment,  looking  at  her  folded 
hands.  "  I  might  as  well  tell  you,"  she  said,  "  that  I 
have  not  been  praying  that  Mr.  Lindsay  should  get 
better.  Only  that  he  should  be  given  time  to  find 
salvation  and  die  in  Jesus." 

"  Don't — don't  say  those  things  to  me.  How  light 
you  are— it's  wicked!"  Alicia  returned  with  vehe- 
mence, and  then,  as  Captain  Filbert  stared,  half  compre- 
hending, "  Don't  you  care?  "  she  added  curiously. 

It  was  so  casual  that  it  was  cruel.  The  girl's  eyes 
grew  wider  still  during  the  instant  she  fixed  them 
upon  Alicia  in  the  effort  of  complete  understanding. 
Then  her  lip  trembled. 

"  How  can  I  care  ?  "  she  cried,  "  how  can  I  ?  "  and 
burst  into  weeping.  She  drew  her  sari  over  her  face 
and  rocked  to  and  fro.  Her  dusty  bare  foot  pro- 
truded from  her  cotton  skirt.  She  sat  huddled  to- 
gether, her  head  in  its  coverings  sunk  between  weak, 
shaking  shoulders.  Alicia  considered  her  for  an  in- 
stant as  a  pitiable  and  degraded  spectacle.  Then  she 
went  over  and  touched  her. 

"  You  are  completely  worn  out,"  she  said,  "  and  it 
is  almost  dinner  time.  The  ayah  will  bring  you  a  hot 
bath  and  then  you  will  come  down  and  have  some 
food  quietly  with  me.  My  brother  is  dining  out 
somewhere.  I  will  go  away  for  a  little  while  and  then 
I  know  you  will  feel  better.     And  after  dinner,"  she 


■ 


HILDA.  163 

added  gently,  "  you  may  come  up  if  you  like  and  pray 
again  for  Mr.  Lindsay.     I  am  sure  he  would " 

The  faintest  break  in  her  own  voice  warned  her, 
and  she  hurried  out  of  the  room. 

It  was  a  foolish  thing  and  the  Livingstones'  old 
Karim  Bux  much  deplored  it,  but  the  Miss-sahib  had 
forgotten  to  give  information  that  the  dinner  of  eight 
commanded  a  fortnight  ago  would  not  take  place — 
hence  everything  was  ready  in  its  sequence  for  this 
event,  with  a  new  fashion  of  stuffing  quails  and  the 
first  strawberries  of  the  season  from  Dinapore.  The 
feelings  of  Karim  Bux  in  presenting  these  things  to  a 
woman  in  the  dress  of  a  coolie  are  not  important ; 
but  Alicia,  for  some  reason,  seemed  to  find  the  trivial 
incident  gratifying. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Under  the  Greek    porch  of    No.   lo,   Middleton 
street,  in  the  white  sunlight  between  the  shadows  of 
the  stucco  pillars,  stood  a  flagrant  ticca-gharry.     The 
driver  lay  extended  on  the  top  of  it,  asleep,  the  syce 
squatted   beneath   the   horse's  nose    and    fed  it  per- 
functorily  with   hay  from  a   bundle   tied    under  the 
vehicle  behind.     A  fringe  of  palms  and  ferns  in  pots 
ran  between  the  pillars,  and  orchids  hung  from  above, 
shutting  out  the  garden,  where  heavy  scents  stood  in 
the  sun  and  mynas  chattered  on  the  drive.     The  air 
was  full  of  ease,  vfdLYm./retillante,  abandoned  to  the 
lavish   energy   of  growing  things;    beyond   the   dis- 
coloured wall  of  the  compound  rose  the  tender  cloud 
of  a  leafing  tamaris'   against  the  blue.     A  long  time 
already  the  driver  tiad  slept  immovably,  and  the  horse, 
uncomplaining  but  uninterested,  had  dragged  at  the 
wisps  of  hay. 

Inside  there  was  no  longer  a  hint  of  Mrs.  Barberry, 
even  a  dropped  handkerchief  agreeably  scented.  The 
night  nurse  had  realised  herself  equally  superfluous 
and  had  gone,  the  other,  a  person  of  practical  views, 
could  hardly  retain  her  indignation  at  being  kept 
from  day  to  day  to  see  her  patient  fed  and  hand  him 
books  and  writing  materials.  She  had  not  even  the 
duty  of  debarring  visitors,  but  sat  most  of  the  time  in 
the  dressing-room,  where  echoes  fell  about  her  of  the 


HILDA. 


165 


stories  with  which  riotous  young  men,  in  tea  and 
wheat  and  jute,  hastened  Mr.  Lindsay's  convalescence. 
There  she  tapped  her  energetic  fat  foot  on  the  floor 
in  vain,  to  express  her  views  upon  such  waste  of 
scientific  training.  She  had  Surgeon-Major  Living- 
stone's orders,  and  he  on  this  occasion  had  his 
sister's. 

There  was  an  air  of  relief,  of  tension  relaxed,  be- 
tween the  two  women  in  the  drawing-room ;  it  was 
plain  that  Alicia  had  comrfiunicated  these  things  to 
her  visitor,  in  their  main  import.  Hilda  was  already 
half-disengaged  from  the  subject,  her  eye  wandered  as 
if  in  search  for  the  avenue  to  another.  By  a  sudden 
inclination  Alicia  began  the  story  of  Laura  Filbert  on 
her  knees  at  Lindsay's  door.  She  told  it  in  a  quiet, 
steady,  colourless  way,  pursuing  it  to  the  end — it 
came  with  the  ease  of  frequent  private  rehearsals — 
and  then  with  her  elbows  on  her  knees  and  her  chin  in 
her  palms  she  stopped  and  gazed  meditatively  in  front 
of  her.  There  was  something  in  the  gaze  to  which 
Hilda  yielded  an  attention  unexpectedly  serious,  some- 
thing of  the  absolute  in  character  and  life  impervious 
to  her  inquiry.  Yet  to  analysis  it  was  only  the  grey 
look  of  eyes  habited  to  regard  the  future  with  penetra- 
tion and  to  find  nothing  there. 

"Have  you  told  him?"  Hilda  asked  after  an 
instant's  pause,  during  which  she  conceded  some- 
thing, she  hardly  knew  what ;  she  meant  to  find  out 
later. 

"  I  haven't  seen  him.  But  I  will  tell  him,  I  promise 
you." 

"  I  have  no  doubt  you  will !  But  don't  promise 
me.     I  won't  even  witness  the  vow  !  "  Hilda  cried. 


i66  HILDA. 

"  What  does  it  matter?  I  shall  certainly  tell  him." 
The  words  fell  definitely  like  pebbles.  Hilda  thought- 
fully picked  them  up. 

"  On  the  whole,"  she  said,  "  perhaps  it  would  be  as 
well.  Yes,  it  is  my  advice.  It  is  quite  likely  that  he 
will  be  revolted.     It  may  be  curative." 

Alicia  turned  away  her  head  to  hide  the  faint  frown 
that  nevertheless  crept  into  her  voice.  "  I  don't 
think  so,"  she  said.  "  How  you  do  juggle  with 
things!  I  don't  know  why  I  talk  to  you  about  this— 
this  matter.     I  am  sure  I  ought  not." 

"I  was  going  to  say,"  pursued  Hilda,  indifferent  to 
her  scruple,  "that  I  shouldn't  be  at  all  surprised  if  his 
illness  leaves  him  quite  emotionally  sane.  The  poison 
has  worked  itself  out  of  his  blood— perhaps  the  pas- 
sion and  the  poison  were  the  same.  In  such  a  case 
it's  all  so  physical.     It  must  be." 

"  I  wonder  !  "  Alicia  said.  She  said  it  mechanically, 
as  the  easiest  comment. 

"When  I  knew  you  first  your  speculation  would 
have  been  more  active,  my  dear.  You  would  have 
looked  into  the  possibility  and  disputed  it.  What  has 
become  of  your  modernity  ?  " 

It  was  the  tenderest  malice,  but  it  obtained  no  con- 
cessive sign.  Alicia  seemed  to  weigh  it.  "I  think  I 
like  theories  better  than  illustrations,"  she  said  in  de- 
fence. 

•'  One  can  look  at  theories  as  one  looks  at  the  sky, 
but  an  illustration  wants  a  careful  point  of  view.  For 
this  one  perhaps  you  are  a  little  near." 

"  Perhaps,"  Alicia  assented,  "I  am  a  little  near." 
She  glanced  quickly  down  as  she  spoke,  but  when  she 
raised  her  eyes  they  were  dry  and  clear. 


HILDA.  167 

"  I  can  see  it  better,"  Hilda  went  on,  with  immense 
audacity,  "  much  better." 

"  Isn't  it  safer  to  feel  ?  " 

^^  Jamais  de  la  vie  !    The  nerves  lie  always." 

They  were  on  the  edge  of  the  vortex  of  the  old  dis- 
pute. Alicia  leaned  back  among  the  cushions  and  re- 
garded the  other  with  an  undecided  eye. 

"  You  are  not  sure,"  said  Hilda,  "  that  you  won't  ask 
me,  at  this  point,  to  look  at  the  pictures  in  that  old 
copy  of  the  Persian  classic — I  forget  its  lovely  name — 
or  inquire  what  sort  of  house  we  had  last  night.  Well, 
don't  be  afraid  of  hurting  my  feelings.  Only,  you 
know,  between  us,  as  between  more  doubtful  people, 
the  door  must  be  either  open  or  shut.  I  fancy  you 
take  cold  easily ;  perhaps  you  had  better  shut  the 
door." 

"  Not  for  worlds,"  Alicia  said,  with  promptitude. 
Then  she  added  rather  cleverly,  "  That  would  be 
my  spoiling  my  one  view  of  life." 

Hilda  smiled.  "  Isn't  there  any  life  where  you 
live?"  She  glanced  round  her,  at  the  tapestried 
elegance  of  the  room,  with  sudden  indifference. 
"  After  all,"  she  said,  "  I  don't  know  what  I  am  doing 
here,  in  your  affairs.  As  the  world  swings  no  one 
could  be  more  remote  from  them  or  you.  I  belong  to 
its  winds  and  its  highways — how  have  you  brought 
me  here,  a  tramp-actress,  to  your  drawing-room  ?  " 

Alicia  laid  a  detaining  hand  upon  Miss  Howe's 
skirt.  **  Don't  go  away,"  she  said.  Hilda  sat  at  the 
other  end  of  the  sofa ;  there  was  hardly  a  foot  between 
them.     She  went  on  with  a  curious  excitement. 

"  My  kind  of  life  is  so  primitive,  so  simple  ;  it  is  one 
pure  pulse,  you  don't  know.      One  only    asks  the 


i68  HILDA. 

things  that  minister— one  goes  and  finds  and  takes 
them ;  one's  feet  in  the  straw,  one's  head  under  any 
roof.  What  difference  docs  it  make?  The  only  thing 
that  counts,  that  rules,  is  the  chance  of  seeing  some- 
thing else,  feeling  something  more,  doing  something 
better." 

Alicia  only  looked  at  her  and  tightened  the  grasp  of 
her  fingers  on  the  actress's  skirt.  Hilda  made  the  slight- 
est, most  involuntary  movement.  It  comprehended 
the  shaking  off  of  hindrance,  the  action  of  flight. 
Then  she  glanced  about  her  again  with  a  kind  of  ap- 
praisement, which  ended  with  Alicia  and  embraced 
her.  What  she  realised  seemed  to  push  her,  I  think, 
in  some  weak  place  of  her  sex,  to  go  on  intensely, 
almost  fiercely. 

'*  Everything  here  is  aftermath.  You  are  a  gleaner, 
Alicia  Livingstone.  We  leave  it  all  over  the  world  for 
people  of  taste,  like  you,  in  the  glow  of  their  illusions. 
I  couldn't  make  you  understand  our  harvest ;  it  is  of 
the  broad  sun  and  the  sincerity  of  things." 

"  I  know  I  must  seem  to  you  dreadfully  out  of  it," 
Alicia  said,  wearing,  as  it  were,  across  her  heaviness  a 
lighter  cloud  of  trouble. 

But  the  other  would  not  be  stayed ;  she  followed 
by  compulsion  her  impulse  to  the  end.  "Shall  I  be 
quite  candid  ? "  she  said.  "  I  find  the  atmosphere 
about  you,  dear,  a  trifle  exhausted." 

Alicia,  with  a  face  of  astonishment,  made  a  half- 
movement  toward  the  window  before  she  understood. 
There  was  some  timidity  in  her  glance  at  Hilda  and 
in  her  mechanical  smile.  "Oh,"  she  said,  "I  see  what 
you  mean ;  and  I  don't  wonder.  I  am  so  literal — I 
have  so  little  imagination." 


HILDA. 


169 


*'  Don't  talk  of  it  as  if  it  were  money  or  fabric — 
something  you  could  add  up  or  measure,"  Hilda  cried 
remorselessly.     **  You  have  none  !  " 

As  if  something  slipped  from  her  Alicia  threw  out 
locked  hands.  "At  least  I  had  enough  to  know  you 
when  you  came  !  "  she  cried.  "  I  felt  you,  too,  and 
it's  not  my  fault  if  there  isn't  enough  of  me  to — to  re- 
spond properly.  And  I  can't  give  you  up.  You 
seem  to  be  the  one  valuable  thing  that  I  can  have — 
the  only  permanent  fact  that  is  left." 

Hilda  had  a  rebound  of  immense  discomfort.  "  Who 
said  anything  about  giving  up?"  she  interrupted. 

"  Why,  you  did!  But  I'm  quite  willing  to  believe 
you  didn't  mean  it,  if  you  say  so."  She  turned  the 
appeal  of  her  face  and  saw  a  sudden  pitiful  considera- 
tion in  Hilda's,  and,  as  if  it  called  them  forth,  two  tears 
sprang  to  her  eyes  and  fell,  as  she  lowered  her  delicate 
head,  upon  her  lap. 

'•  Dear  thing !  I  didn't  indeed.  If  I  meant  any- 
thing it  was  that  I'm  overstrung.  I've  been  horribly 
harried  lately."  She  possessed  herself  of  one  of 
Alicia's  hands  and  stroked  it.  Alicia  kept  her  head 
bent  for  a  moment  and  then  let  it  fall,  in  sudden 
abandonment,  upon  the  other  woman's  shoulder.  Her 
defences  crumbled  so  utterly  that  Hilda  felt  guilty  of 
using  absurdly  heavy  artillery.  They  sat  together  for 
a  moment  or  two  in  silence  with  only  that  superven- 
ing sense  of  successful  aggression  between  them,  and 
the  humiliation  was  Hilda's.  Presently  it  grew  heavy, 
embarrassing.  Alicia  got  up  and  began  a  slow,  rest- 
less pacing  up  and  down  before  the  alcove  they  sat  in. 
Hilda  watched  her — it  was  a  rhythmic  progress — and 
when  she  came  near  with  a  sound  of  brushing  silk  and 


170  HILDA. 

a  faint  fragrance  which  seemed  a  personal  emanation, 
drew  a  long  breath,  as  if  she  were  an  essence  to  be  in- 
haled, and  so,  in  a  manner,  obtained,  assimilated. 

"Oh,  yes,"  Miss  Livingstone  said,  rehabilitating 
herself  with  a  smile,  "  I  must  keep  you.  I'll  do  any- 
thing you  like  to  make  myself  more — worth  while. 
I'll  read  for  the  pure  idea.  I  think  I'll  take  up  model- 
ling.    There's  rather  a  good  man  here  just  now." 

"Yes,"  Hilda  assented.  "  Read  for  the  pure  idea — 
take  up  modelling.  It  is  most  expedient,  especially 
if  you  marry.  Women  who  like  those  things  some- 
times have  geniuses  for  sons.  But  for  me,  so  far  as  I 
count — oh,  my  dear,  do  nothing  more.  You  are 
already  an  achieved  effect — a  consummation  of  the  ex- 
quisite in  every  way.  Generations  have  been  chosen 
among  for  you ;  your  person  holds  the  inheritance  of 
all  that  is  gracious  and  tender  and  discriminating  in  a 
hundred  years.  You  are  as  rare  as  I  am,  and  if  there 
is  anything  you  would  take  from  me,  I  would  make 
more  than  one  exchange  for  the  mere  niceness  of  your 
fibre — the  feeling  you  have  for  fine  shades  of  morality 
and  taste — all  that  makes  you  a  lady,  my  dear." 

"  Such  niminy  piminy  things,"  said  Alicia,  contra- 
dicting the  light  of  satisfaction  in  her  eyes.  The 
sound  of  a  step  came  from  the  room  overhead,  and  the 
light  died  out.  "  And  what  good  do  they  do  me !  "  she 
cried  in  soft  misery.   "  What  good  do  they  do  me  !  " 

"Considerably  less  than  they  ought.  Why  aren't 
you  up  there  now  ?  What  more  simple,  honest  opportu. 
nity  do  you  want  than  a  sick  room  in  your  own 
house  ?  " 

Alicia,  with  a  frightened  glance  at  the  ceiling,  flew 
to  her  side.    "  Oh,  hush  ! "  she  cried.    "  Go  on  !  " 


HILDA.  171 

"  It  ought  to  be  there  beside  him,  the  charm  of  you. 
The  room  should  be  full  of  cool  refreshing  hints  of 
what  you  are.  Your  profile  should  come  between  him 
and  the  twilight  with  a  scent  of  violets." 

*•  It  sounds  like  a  plot."  Alicia  murmured. 

"It/Vaplot.  Why  quibble  about  it?  If  you  smile 
at  him  it's  a  plot.  If  you  put  a  rose  in  your  hair  it's  a 
deep-laid  scheme,  deeper  than  you  perceive — the 
scheme  the  universe  is  built  on.  We  wouldn't  have 
lent  ourselves  to  the  arrangement,  we  women,  if  we 
had  been  consulted ;  we're  naturally  too  scrupulous, 
but  nobody  asked  us.  'Without  our  aid  He  did  us 
make,'  you  know." 

"But — deliberately — to  go  so  far!  I  couldn't,  I 
couldn't,  even  if  I  could." 

Hilda  leaned  back  in  her  corner  with  her  arms  ex- 
tended along  the  back  and  the  end  of  the  sofa.  Her 
hands  drooped  in  their  vigour,  her  knees  were  crossed, 
and  her  skirts  draped  them  in  long  simple  lines.  In 
her  symmetry  and  strength  and  the  warm  cloud  of  her 
hair  and  the  soul  that  sat  behind  the  shadows  of  her 
eyes  Vedder  might  have  drawn  her  as  a  tragic  symbol 
for  the  poet  who  sang  in  the  King's  garden  of  wine 
and  death  and  roses. 

"  I  would  go  further,"  she  said,  and  looked  as  if 
some  other  thing  charged  with  sweetness  had  come 
before  her. 

**  And  even  if  one  gained,  one  would  never  trust 
one's  success,"  Alicia  faltered. 

"Ah,  if  one  gained  one  would  hold,"  Hilda  said; 
and  while  she  smiled  on  her  pupil  in  the  arts  of  life, 
the  tenderness  grew  in  her  eyes  and  came  upon  her 
lips.  As  if  she  knew  her  betrayal  already  complete, 
"  I  wish  I  had  such  a  chance,"  she  said. 


i;2  HILDA. 

Alicia  looked  at  her  as  they  might  have  looked, 
across  the  desert,  at  a  mirage  of  the  Promised  Land. 

"  Then  after  all  he  has  prevailed,"  she  said. 

"Who?" 

"  Hamilton  Bradley." 

Hilda  laughed— the  laugh  was  full  and  light  and 
spontaneous,  as  if  ail  the  training  of  the  notes  of  her 
throat  came  unconsciously  to  make  it  beautiful. 

"  How  you  will  hold  me  to  my  metier^'  she  said. 
"  Hamilton  Bradley  has  given  up  trying." 

"Then " 

"Then  think!     Be  clever.     Be  very  clever." 

Alicia  dropped  her  head  in  the  joined  length  of  her 
hands.  A  turquoise  on  one  of  them  made  them 
whiter,  more  transparent  than  usual.  Presently  she 
drew  her  face  up  from  her  clinging  fingers  and  searched 
the  other  woman  with  eyes  that  nevertheless  refused 
confirmation  for  their  astonishment. 

"Well?"  said  Hilda. 

"  I  can  think  of  no  one — there  is  no  one — except 

oh,  it's  too  absurd!  Not  Stephen  —  poor  de^r 
Stephen!" 

The  faintest  shadow  drifted  across  Hilda's  face,  as  if 
for  an  in::tant  she  con'ccmplated  a  thing  inscrutable. 
Then  the  light  came  back,  dashed  with  a  gravity,  a 
gentleness. 

'  I  admit  the  absurdity.  Stephen — poor  dear 
Stephen.  How  odd  it  seems,"  she  went  on,  while 
Alicia  gazed,  "  the  announcement  of  it— like  a  thing 
born.     But  it  is  that— a  thing  bLrn." 

"I  don't  understand — in  the  least,"  Alicia  ex- 
claimed. 

"  Neither  do  L     I  don't,  indeed.     Sometimes  I  feel 


HILDA. 


173 


like  a  creature  with  its  feet  in  a  trap.     The  insane, 

insane  improbability  of  it ! "     She  laughed  again.    It 

was  delicious  to  hear  her. 
"  But— he  is  a  priest !  " 
"  Much  more  difficult.     He  is  a  saint." 
Alicia  glanced  at  the  floor.     The  record  of  another 

lighter  moment  twitched  itself  out  of  a  day  that  was 

forgotten. 

••  Are  you  quite  certain  ?  "  she  said.  "  You  told  me 
once  that— that  there  had  been  other  times." 

"They  are  useful,  those  foolish  episodes.  They  ex- 
plain to  one  the  difference."  The  tone  of  this  was 
very  even,  very  usual,  but  Alicia  was  aware  of  a  sug- 
gestion in  it  that  accused  her  of  aggression,  that 
almost  ranged  her  hostile.  She  hurried  out  of  that 
position. 

"  If  it  were  possible,"  she  said,  frowning  at  her 
embarrassment.  "I  see  nothing— nothing  really— 
against  it." 

"  I  should  think  not !  Can't  you  conceive  what  I 
could  do  for  him  ?  " 

"And  what  could  he  do  for  you?"  Alicia  asked, 
with  a  flash  of  curiosity. 

"  I  don't  think  I  cm  let  you  ask  me  that." 

"There  are  such  strange  things  to  consider! 
Would  he  withdraw  from  the  Church?  Would  you 
retire  from  the  stage?  I  don't  know  which  seems  the 
more  impossible !  " 

Hilda  got  up. 

"  It  would  be  a  criminal  choice,  wouldn't  it  ?  "  she 
said.  "  I  haven't  made  it  out.  And  he,  you  know, 
still  dreams  only  of  Bengali  souls  for  redemption, 
never  of  me  at  all." 


174  HILDA. 

A  servant  of  the  house,  with  the  air  of  a  messenger, 
brought  Alicia  a  scrap  of  paper.  She  glanced  at  it, 
and  then,  with  hands  that  trembled,  began  folding  it 
together. 

'•  He  has  been  allowed  to  get  up  and  sit  in  a  chair," 
she  murmured,  "  and  he  wants  me  to  come  and  talk 
to  him." 

"  Well,"  said  Hilda,  "  come." 

She  put  her  arm  about  Alicia  and  drew  her  out  of 
the  room  to  the  foot  of  the  stairs.  They  went  in 
silence,  saying  nothing  even  when  they  parted,  and 
Alicia,  of  her  own  accord,  began  to  ascend.  Half 
way  up  she  paused  and  looked  down.  Hilda  turned 
to  meet  her  glance,  and  something  of  primitive  puis- 
sance passed,  conscious,  comprehended,  between  the 
eyes  of  the  two  women. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

For  three  days  there  had  certainly  been,  with  the 
invalid,  no  sign  of  anything  but  convalescence.     An 
appetite  to   cry   out  upon,  a   chartered  tendency   to 
take  small  liberties,  to  make  small  demands ;  such  in- 
dications  offered  themselves  to  the  eye  that  looked 
for  other  betrayals.     There  had  been  opportunities- 
even  the  day  nurse  had  gone   and  Lindsay  came  to 
tea  m  the  drawing-room— but  he  seemed  to  prefer  to 
talk  about  the  pattern  in  the  carpet,  or  the  corpulence 
of   the   khansamah,    or    things    in     the     newspapers. 
Alicia  once,  at  a  suggestive  point,  put  almost  a  visible 
question  into  a  silent  glance,  and  Lindsay  asked  her 
for  some  more  sugar.      Surgcon-Major  Livingstone, 
coming   into   his   office   unexpectedly   one   morning, 
found  his  sister  in  the  act  of  replacing  a  volume  upo'^n 
Its  professional  shelf.     It  was  somebody  on  the  pa- 
thology  of  Indian  fevers.     Hilda's  tlicory  lacked  so 
little  to  approve  it— only  technical  corroboration.     It 
might  also  be  considered  that,  although   Laura  had 
expressly  received  the  freedom  of  the  city  for  intcr- 
cessional   or  any  other   purpose,  slic    did    not    come 
agam.     They  may  have  heard   in   Crooked  lane  that 
Duff  was  better.     We  may  freely  imagine  that  Mrs. 
Sand  was  informed  ;  it  looked  as  if  the  respite  to  dis- 
interested anxiety  afforded  by  his  recovery  had  been 
taken  advantage  of.     Lindsay  was  to  be  given  time 


176  HILDA. 

for  more  dignified  repentance ;  they  might  now  very 
well  hand  him  over,  Alicia  thouglit,  smiling,  to  the 
Archdeacon.  ^ 

As  a  test,  as  something  to  reckon  by,  the  revelation 
to  Lindsay,  still  in  prospect,  of  the  single  visit  Captain 
Filbert  did  make  was  perhaps  lacking  in  essentials. 
It  would  be  an  experiment  of  some  intricacy,  it  might 
very  probably  work  out  in  shades.  So  much  would 
infallibly  have  to  be  put  down  for  surprise  and  so 
much  reasonably  for  displeasure,  without  any  prejudice 
to  the  green  hope  budding  underneath  ;  the  key  to 
Hilda's  theory  might  very  well  be  lost  in  contingen- 
cies. Nevertheless,  Alicia  postponed  her  story  from 
day  to  day  and  from  hour  to  hour.  If  her  ideas  about 
it — she  kept  them  carefully  in  solution — could  have 
been  nrecipitated  they  might  have  appeared  in  a  for- 
mu  uvourite  with  her  brother,  the  Surgeon-Major, 
who  often  talked  of  giving  nature  a  chance. 

She  told  him  finally  on  the  morning  of  his  first 
drive.  They  went  together  and  alone,  Alicia  taking 
her  brother's  place  in  the  carriage  at  a  demand  for 
him  from  the  hospital.  It  was  seven  o'clock,  and  the 
morning  wind  swept  soft  and  warm  from  over  the 
river.  There  was  a  white  light  on  all  the  stucco  par- 
apets, and  their  shadows  slanted  clear  and  delicately 
purple  to  the  west.  The  dust  slept  on  the  broad 
roads  of  the  Maidan,  only  a  curling  trace  lifted  itself 
here  and  there  at  the  heel  of  a  cart-bullock,  and  noth- 
ing had  risen  yet  of  the  lazy  tumult  of  the  streets 
thp*-  knotted  themselves  in  the  city.  From  the  river, 
curving  past  the  statue  of  an  Indian  administrator, 
came  a  string  of  country  people  with  baskets  on  their 
heads.     The  sun  struck  a  vivid  note  with  the  red  and 


HILDA.  177 

the  safifron  they  wore,  turned  them  into  an  ornamenta- 
tion, in  the  profuse  Oriental  taste,  of  the  empty  ex- 
panse. There  was  the  completest  freedom  in  the 
wide,  tree-dotted  spaces  round  which  the  city  gathered 
her  shops  and  her  palaces,  the  fullest  invitation  to  dis- 
burden any  heaviness  that  might  oppress,  to  give  the 
wings  of  words  to  any  joy  that  might  rebel  in  prison. 
The  advantage  of  the  intimacy  of  the  landau  for  pur- 
poses of  observation  was  so  obvious  that  one  imagines 
Alicia  must  have  been  aware  of  it,  though,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  when  she  told  Lindsay  she  did  not  look  at  him 
at  all,  but  beyond  the  trees  of  the  Eden  Gardens, 
where  the  yellow  dome  of  the  Post  Office  swelled 
against  the  morning  sky,  and  so  lost  it. 

He  heard  without  exclamation,  but  stopped  her 
now  and  then  with  a  question.  On  what  day  pre- 
cisely ?  And  how  long  ?  And  afterward  ?  The  yel- 
low dome  was  her  anchor;  she  turned  her  head  a 
little,  as  the  road  trended  the  other  way,  to  keep  her 
eyes  upon  it.  There  was  an  endless  going  round  of 
wheels,  and  trees  passed  them  in  mechanical  succes- 
sion ;  a  tree,  and  another  tree ;  some  of  them  had 
flowers  on  them.  When  he  broke  the  silence  after- 
ward, she  started  as  if  in  apprehension,  but  it  was  only 
to  say  something  that  anybody  might  have  said,  about 
the  self-sacrificing  energy  of  the  organisation  to  which 
Miss  Filbert  belonged.  Her  assent  was  little  and 
meagre ;  nothing  would  help  her  to  expand  it.  The 
Salvation  Army  rose  before  her  as  a  mammoth  skele- 
ton, without  a  suggestive  bone. 

Presently  he  said  in  a  different  way,  as  if  he  uttered 
an  unguarded  thought,  "  I  had  so  little  to  make  me 
think  she  cared."     There  was  in  it  that  phantom   of 


II 

•  I 

II 
II 

II 


178  HILDA. 

speculation  and  concern  which  a  sick  man  finds  under 
pressure,  and  it  penetrated  Alicia  that  he  abandoned 
himself  to  his  invalid's  privileges  as  if  he  valued  them. 
He  lay  extended  beside  her  among  his  cushions  and 
wraps ;  she  tried  to  look  at  him,  and  got  as  far  as  the 
hand  nearest  her,  ungloved  and  sinewy,  on  the  plaid 
of  the  rug. 

**  She  told  me  it  was  not  for  your  life  she  had  been 
praying — only  that  if  you  died  you  might  be  saved 
first."  Her  eyes  were  still  on  his  hand,  and  she  saw 
the  fingers  close  into  the  palm  as  if  by  an  impulse  to 
some  kind  of  action.  Then  they  relaxed  again,  and 
he  said,  "  Oh,  well,"  and  smiled  at  the  balancings  of  a 
crow  drinking  at  a  city  conduit. 

That  was  all.  Alicia  made  an  effort,  odd  and  im- 
possible enough,  to  postpone  her  impressions,  even 
her  emotions.  In  the  meantime  it  was  something  to 
have  got  it  over,  and  she  was  able  at  a  bound  to  talk 
about  the  commonplaces  of  the  roadside.  In  her 
escape  from  this  oppression,  she  too  gathered  a  fresh- 
ness, a  convalescent  pleasure  in  what  they  saw  ;  every- 
thing had  in  some  way  the  likeness  of  the  leafing  teak 
trees,  tender  and  curative.  In  the  broad  early  light 
that  lay  over  the  tanks  there  was  a  vague  allurement, 
almost  a  presage,  and  the  wide  spaces  of  the  Maidan 
made  room  for  hope.  She  asked  Lindsay  presently  if 
he  would  mind  driving  to  the  market;  she  wanted 
some  flowers  for  that  night.  I  think  she  wanted  some 
flowers  for  that  hour.  Her  thought  broke  so  easily 
into  tlie  symbol  of  a  rose. 

They  turned  into  Chowringhee,  where  the  hibiscus 
bushes  showed  pink  and  crimson  over  the  stucco 
walls,  and  at  the  gates  of  the  pillared  houses  servants 


I 


HILDA. 


179 


with  brown  and  shining  backs  sat  on  their  haunches 
in  the  sun  and  were  shaved.  Where  the  street  ran 
into  shops  there  was  still  a  shuttered  biankness,  but 
here  and  there  a  citirivan*  yawned  and  stretched  him- 
self before  an  open  door,  and  a  sweeper  made  a  cloud 
of  dust  beneath  a  commercial  verandah.  The  first 
boarding  in  a  side  street  announced  the  appearance  of 
Miss  Hilda  Howe  for  one  night  only  as  Lady  Macbeth, 
under  the  kind  patronage  of  His  Excellency  the  Vice- 
roy, with  Jimmy  Finnigan  in  the  close  proximity  of 
professional  jealousy,  advertising  five  complete  novel- 
ties for  the  same  evening.  It  made  a  cheerful  note 
which  appealed  to  them  both ;  it  was  a  pictorial  com- 
bination, Hilda  and  Jimmy  Finnigan  and  the  Viceroy  ; 
there  was  something  of  gay  burlesque  in  the  metro- 
politan poster  against  the  crumbling  plaster  of  the 
outer  mosque  wall  where  Mussulmans  left  their  shoes. 
Talking  of  Hilda,  they  smiled  ;  it  was  a  way  her 
friends  had,  a  testimony  to  the  difference  of  her.  In 
Alicia's  smile  there  was  a  satisfaction  rather  subtle 
and  in  a  manner  superior ;  she  knew  of  things. 

The  life  of  the  market,  the  bazaar,  was  all  awake 
and  moving.  They  rolled  up  though  a  crowd  of  in- 
ferior vehicles,  empty  for  the  moment  and  abandoned, 
where  the  leisurely  crowd,  with  calculation  under  its 
turbans,  swayed  about  the  market-house,  and  the  pots 
of  a  palm-dealer  ran  out  of  bounds  and  made  a  little 
grove  before  the  stall  of  the  man  who  sold  pith 
helmets.  The  warm  air  held  the  smell  of  all  sorts  of 
commodities  :  there  was  a  great  hum  of  small  transac- 
tions, clink  of  small  profits.  •*  It  makes  one  feel  im- 
mensely practical  and  acquisitive,"  DufT  said,  looking 

•Doorkeeper. 


'  / 


i8o  HILDA. 

at  the  loaded  baskets  on  the  coolies*  heads ;  and  he 
insisted  on  getting  out.  "I  am  dying  to  buy  an 
enormous  number  of  desirable  things  very  cheap.  But 
not  combs  or  shirt-buttons,  thank  you,  nor  any  rib- 
bons or  lace — is  that  good  lace,  Miss  Livingstone  ? 
Nor  even  a  live  duck — really  I  am  difficult.  We 
might  inquire  the  price  of  the  duck,  though." 

The  sense  of  being  contributory  to  his  holiday 
satisfaction  reigned  in  her.  She  abandoned  herself 
to  it  with  a  little  smile  that  played  steadily  about  her 
lips,  as  if  it  would  tell  him,  without  her  sanction, 
how  continually  she  rejoiced  in  his  regained  well- 
being.  They  made  their  way  slowly  toward  the 
flower-corner ;  there  were  so  many  things  he  wanted 
to  stop  before  as  they  went,  leaning  on  his  stick  to 
examine  them  and  delighting  in  opportunities  for 
making  himself  quite  ridiculous.  The  country  to- 
bacco-dealer laughed  too,  squatting  behind  his  basket ; 
it  was  a  mad  sahib,  but  not  madder  than  the  rest, 
and  there  was  no  hurry.  Alicia  saw  the  pink  glow  of 
the  roses  beyond,  where  the  sun  struck  across  them 
over  the  shoulders  of  the  crowd,  and  was  content  to 
reach  them  by  degrees.  They  would  be  in  their 
achieved  sweetness  a  kind  of  climax  to  the  hour's 
experience,  and  after  that  she  was  not  entirely  sure 
j '  that   the  day  would  be  as  grey  as  other  days. 

!'  This  was  the  flood-time  of    roses  and  it  was  ex- 

^'  quisite  in  the  flower-corner  with  the  soft  wind  picking 

\\  up   their   fragrance  and   squares   of  limpid   sunlight 

standing  on  the  wet  flagstones.  Some  of  the  stall- 
keepers  had  little  glass  cases,  and  in  these  there  was 
room  only  for  the  Gloire  de  Dijons  and  the  La 
Frances  and  the  velvety  Jacks,  the  rest  over-ran  the 


I 


« ' 


. 


HILDA.  i8i 

tables  and  the  floor  in  anything  that  would  hold  them. 
The  place  rioted  with  the  joy  and  the  passion  of 
roses,  for  buying  and  selling.  There  were  other 
flowers,  nasturtiums,  cornbottles,  mignonette,  but 
they  had  a  diminished,  insignificant  look  in  their  tied- 
up  bunches  beside  the  triumph  of  the  roses.  Further 
on,  beyond  the  cage  of  the  money-changer,  the  coun- 
try people  were  hoarse  with  crying  their  vegetables, 
in  two  green  rows,  and  beyond  that,  where  the  jost- 
ling crowd  divided,  shone  a  glimpse  of  oranges  and 
pomegranates.  In  this  part  there  were  many  comers 
and  goers,  lean  Mussulman  table  servants  and  fat 
Eurasian  ladies  who  kept  boarding-houses,  Armenian 
women  with  embroidered  shawls  drawn  over  their 
heads,  sailors  of  the  port.  They  came  to  pass  that 
way,  through  the  sweetness  of  it,  and  this  made  a 
coign  of  vantage  for  the  men  with  trays,  who  were 
very  persecuting  there.  Lindsay  and  Alicia  stood 
together  beside  the  roses,  her  hands  were  deep  in 
them  ;  he  perceived  with  pleasure  that  their  glow  was 
reflected  in  her  face.  "  No,"  she  exclaimed  with  dainty 
aplomb  to  the  man  who  sat  cross-legged  in  muslin 
draperies  on  the  table.  "  These  are  certainly  of 
yesterday.  There  is  no  scent  left  in  them — and  look !  '* 
she  held  up  the  bunch  and  shook  it.  A  shower  of  pink 
petals  and  drops  of  water  fell  upon  the  round  of  her  arm 
above  the  wrist,  where  the  laces  of  her  sleeve  slipped 
back.  Lindsay  had  something  like  a  poetic  apprecia- 
tion of  her,  observing  her  put  the  bunch  down  ten- 
derly, as  if  she  would  not,  if  she  could  help  it,  find 
fault  with  any  rose.  The  dealer  drew  out  another 
and  handed  it  to  her ;  a  long-stemmed,  wide-open, 
perfect   thing,  and   it   was  then   that  her  glance   of 


182  HILDA. 

delight,  wandering,  fell  upon  Laura  Filbert.  Lindsay 
looked  instantly,  curiously,  in  the  same  direction, 
and  Alicia  was  aware  that  he  also  saw.  There  ensued 
a  terse  moment  with  a  burden  of  silence  and  the 
strangest  misj;ivings,  in  which  he  may  have  imagined 
that  he  had  his  part  alone,  but  which  was  the  heavier 
for  her  because  of  him.  These  two  had  seen  the  girl 
before  only  under  circumstances  that  suggested  pro- 
tection, that  made  excuse,  on  a  platform  receiving 
the  respect  of  attention,  marching  with  her  fellows 
under  common  conventions,  common  orders.  Here, 
alone,  slipping  in  and  out  among  the  crowd,  she 
looked  abandoned  ;  the  sight  of  her  in  her  bare  white 
feet  and  the  travesty  of  her  dress  was  a  wound.  Her 
humility  screamed  its  violation,  its  debasement  of  her 
race;  she  woke  the  impulse  to  screen  her  and  hurry 
her  away  as  if  she  were  a  woman  walking  in  her 
sleep.  She  had  on  her  arm  a  sheaf  of  the  PVar  Cry. 
This  was  another  indignity ;  she  offered  them  right 
and  left,  and  no  one  had  a  pice  for  her  except  one 
man,  a  sailor  who  refused  the  paper.  When  he  re- 
joined his  companions  there  was  a  hoarse  laugh,  and 
the  others  turned  their  heads  to  look  after  her. 

The  flower-dealer  eyed  his  customers  with  contemp- 
tuous speculation,  seeing  what  had  claimed  their  eyes. 
There  was  nothing  new,  the  "  mem  "  passed  every  day 
at  this  hour.  She  did  no  harm  and  no  good.  He, 
too,  looked  at  her  as  she  came  closer,  offering  her  pa- 
per to  Alladiah  Khan,  a  man  impatient  in  his  religion, 
who  refused  it,  mumbling  in  his  beard.  With  a  ges- 
ture of  appeal  she  pressed  it  on  him,  saying  some- 
thing. Then  Alladiah's  green  turban  shook,  his  beard, 
dyed  red  in  Mecca,  waggled ;  he  raised  his  arm,  and 


HILDA. 


183 


Laura,  in  white  astonishment,  darted  from  under  it 
They  seldom  did  that. 

Alicia  caught  at  the  stall  table  and  clung  to  it  as 
Lindsay  made  his  stride  forward.  She  saw  him  twist 
his  hand  in  the  beard  of  Mecca  and  fling  the  man  into 
the  road  ;  she  was  aware  of  a  vague  thankfulness  that 
it  ended  there,  as  if  she  expected  bloodshed.  More 
plainly  she  saw  the  manner  of  Duff's  coming  back  to 
the  girl,  and  the  way  in  which,  with  a  look  of  half- 
frightened  satisfaction,  Laura  gave  herself  up  to  him. 
He  was  hurrying  her  away  without  a  word.  Her  sur- 
render was  as  absolute  and  final  as  if  she  had  been 
one  of  those  desirable  things  he  said  he  wanted  to  buy. 
Alicia  intercepted,  as  it  were,  the  indignity  of  being 
forgotten,  stepping  up  to  them.  "  Take  her  home  in 
the  carriage,"  she  said  to  Duff,  **  and  send  it  back  for 
me.  I  shall  be  here  a  long  time  still — quite  a  long 
time."  She  stared  at  Captain  Filbert  as  she  spoke, 
but  made  no  answer  to  the  "Good-morning!  God 
bless  you ! "  with  which  the  girl  perfunctorily  ad- 
dressed her.  When  they  left  her  she  looked  down  at 
the  long-stemmed  rose,  the  perfect  one,  and  drove  a 
thorn  of  it  deep  into  her  palm,  as  other  creatures  will 
sometimes  hurt  themselves  more  to  suffer  less.  It  was 
not  in  the  least  fantastic  of  her,  for  she  was  not  aware 
that  she  still  held  it,  but  that  was  the  only  rose  she 
brought  away. 


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CHAPTER  XVII. 

Hilda  left  the  road,  with  a  trace  of  its  red  dust  on 
the  hem  of  her  skirt,  and  struck  out  into  the  Maidan. 
It  spread  before  her  green  where  the  slanting  sun 
searched  through  the  short  blades,  brown  and  yellow 
in  the  distance,  where  the  light  lay  on  the  top  of  the 
withered  grass.  It  was  like  a  great  English  park,  with 
something  of  the  village  common,  only  the  trees,  for 
the  most  part,  made  avenues  over  it,  running  an  arbi- 
trary half-n"'i3  this  way  or  that,  with  here  and  there  a 
group  dot  A  about  in  the  open ;  and  the  brimming 
tank-ponds  were  of  India  and  of  now!  're  else  in  the 
world.  The  sun  was  dipping  behind  the  masts  that 
showed  where  the  straight  border  of  the  river  ran,  and 
the  shadows  of  the  pipals  and  the  banyans  were  richly 
purple  over  the  roads.  The  light  struck  on  the  stuc- 
coed upper  verandahs  of  the  houses  in  Chowringhee 
which  made  behind  their  gardens  the  other  border,  and 
seemed  to  push  them  back,  to  underline  their  scattered 
insignificance,  hinting  that  the  Maidan  at  its  pleasure 
might  surge  over  them  altogether.  Calcutta,  the 
teeming  capital,  lived  in  the  streets  and  gullies  behind 
that  chaste  frontage  and  quarrelled  over  drainage 
schemes;  but  out  here  cattle  grazed  in  quiet  compa- 
nies, and  squirrels  played  on  the  boles  of  the  trees. 
Calcutta,  the  capital,  indeed,  was  superimposed  ;  one 
felt  that  always  at  this  time,  when  the  glow  came  and 
stood  in  the  air  among  the  tamarinds,  and  there  was 


HILDA.  185 

nothing  anywhere  but  luminous  space  and  indolent 
stillness,  and  the  wrangling  and  winging  of  crows. 
What  persisted,  then,  under  the  span  of  the  sky  was 
the  old  India  of  rich  traditions,  and  a  thinking  bullock 
beneath  the  yoke,  jogging  through  the  evening  to  his 
own  place  where  the  blue  haze  hid  the  little  huts  on 
the  rim  of  the  city,  the  real  India,  and  the  rest  was  fic- 
tion and  fabrication. 

The  grass  was  crisp  and  pleasant.  Hilda  deliberately 
sought  its  solace  for  her  feet,  letting  their  pressure 
linger.  All  day  long  the  sun  had  been  drawing  the 
sweetness  and  the  life  out  of  it,  and  now  the  air  had  a 
sweet,  warm,  and  grateful  scent,  like  that  of  harvests. 
The  crickets  had  been  at  it  since  five  o'clock,  and 
though  the  city  rose  not  half  a  mile  across  the  grass,  it 
was  the  crickets  she  heard  and  listened  to.  In  making 
private  statements  of  things,  the  crickets  offered  a 
chorus  of  agreement  and  they  never  interrupted.  Not 
that  .^e  had  much  to  consider,  poor  girl,  which  lent  it- 
self to  a  difference  of  opinion.  One  might  have  thought 
her,  to  meet  a  situation  at  any  point  like  her  own,  not 
badly  equipped.  She  had  all  the  arguments — which 
is  like  saying  all  the  arms — and  the  most  accurate  un- 
derstanding ;  but  the  only  practical  outcome  of  these 
things  had  been  an  intimate  object-lesson  in  the  small 
value  of  the  intelligence,  that  flavoured  her  state  with 
cynicism  and  made  it  more  piquant.  She  did  not  al- 
together scorn  her  own  intelligence  at  the  result, 
because  i':  had  always  admitted  the  existence  of 
dominating  facts  that  belonged  to  life  and  not  to 
reason  ;  it  was  only  the  absurd  unexpectedness  of  com- 
ing across  one  herself.  One  might  think  round  such  a 
fact  and  talk  round  it — there  were  less  exquisite  satis- 


i86  HILDA. 

factions — but  it  was  not  to  be  cowed  or  abated,  and  in 
the  end  the  things  one  said  were  only  words. 

Out  there  in  the  grassy  spaces  she  let  her  thoughts 
flow  through  her  veins,  with  her  blood,  warm  and  free. 
The  primitive  things  she  saw  helped  her  to  a  fulness 
of  life ;  the  south  wind  brought  her  profound  sweet 
presciences.  A  coolie  woman,  carrying  a  basket  on 
her  head,  stopped  and  looked  at  her  with  full,  glisten- 
ing eyes ;  they  smiled  at  each  other  and  passed  on. 
She  found  herself  upon  a  narrow  path,  worn  smooth 
by  other  barefooted  coolie-folk ;  it  made  in  its  devious 
way  toward  the  rich  mists  where  the  sun  had  gone 
down  and  Hilda  followed  it,  breasting  the  glow  and 
the  colour  and  wide,  flat  expanse,  as  if  in  the  India  of  it 
there  breathed  something  exquisitely  sensuous  and 
satisfying.  It  struck  sharp  on  her  senses ;  she  almost 
consciously  thanked  heaven  for  such  a  responsive  set 
of  nerves.  Always  and  everywhere  she  was  intensely 
conscious  of  what  she  saw,  and  of  how  she  saw  it ;  and  it 
was  characteristic  of  her  that  she  found  in  that  saffron 
February  evening,  spreading  to  a  purple  rim  with 
wandering  points  of  colour  in  a  soldier's  coat  or  a 
coachman's  turban,  an  atmosphere  and  a  mise  en  sckne 
for  her  own  complication.  She  could  take  a  tenderly 
artistic  view  of  that,  more  soothing  a  good  deal  than 
any  result  that  came  of  examining  it  in  other  lights. 
And  she  did,  aware,  with  smiling  eyes,  of  how  colour- 
able, how  dramatic  it  was. 

Nevertheless,  she  had  hardly  closed  with  it;  any 
material  outcome  seemed  a  great  way  off,  pursuable 
by  conjecture  when  there  was  time  for  that.  For  the 
present,  there  on  the  Maidan  with  the  south  wind,  she 
took  it  with  her  head  thrown  up,  in  her  glad,  free  fash- 


HILDA. 


1 8; 


ion,  as  something  that  came  in  the  way  of  life — the 
delightful  way  of  life — with  which  it  was  absurd  to 
quarrel  because  of  a  slight  inconvenience  or  incongru- 
ity, things  which  helped,  after  all,  to  make  existence 
fascinating. 

A  marigold  lay  in  the  path,  an  orange-coloured 
scrap  with  a  broken  stem,  dropped  from  some  coolie's 
necklace.  Hilda  picked  it  up  and  drew  in  the  crude, 
warm  pungency  of  its  smell.  She  closed  her  eyes  and 
drifted  on  the  odour,  forgetting  her  speculations,  los- 
ing her  feet.  All  India  and  all  her  passion  was  in 
that  violent,  penetrating  fragrance ;  it  brought  her,  as 
she  gave  her  senses  up  to  it,  a  kind  of  dual  perception 
of  being  near  the  core,  the  throbbing  centre  of  the 
world's  meaning. 

Her  awakened  glance  fell  upon  Duff  Lindsay.  He 
hastened  to  meet  her,  in  his  friendly  way;  and  she 
was  glad  of  the  few  yards  that  lay  between  them,  and 
gave  transit  to  her  senses  from  that  other  plane. 
They  encountered  each  other  in  full  recognition  of  the 
happiness  of  the  accident,  and  he  turned  back  with  her 
as  a  matter  of  course.  It  was  a  kind  of  fruition  of  all 
that  light  and  colour  and  passive  delight  that  they 
should  meet  and  take  a  path  together,  he  at  least  was 
aware.  Hilda  asked  him  if  he  was  quite  all  right  now, 
and  he  said  "  Absolutely  "  with  a  shade  of  emphasis. 
She  charged  him  with  having  been  a  remarkable  case, 
and  he  piled  up  illustrations  of  what  he  felt  able  to  do 
in  his  convalescence.  There  was  something  in  the  way 
he  insisted  upon  his  restoration  which  made  her 
hasten  to  take  her  privilege  of  intimacy. 

"And  I  hear  I  may  congratulate  you,"  she  said. 
"  You  have  got  what  you  wanted." 


I88  HILDA. 

"  Someone  has  told  you,"  he  retorted,  "  who  is  not 
friendly  to  it." 

"  On  the  contrary,  someone  who  has  given  it  the 
most  cordial  support — Alicia  Livingstone." 

He  mused  upon  this  for  an  instant,  as  if  it  presented 
Alicia  for  the  first  time  under  such  an  aspect. 

"  She  has  been  immensely  kind,"  he  asserted,  "  but 
she  wasn't  at  first.  At  first  she  was  hostile,  like  you, 
only  that  her  hostility  was  different,  just  as  she  is  dif- 
ferent. She  had  to  be  converted,"  he  went  on  hope- 
fully, "  but  it  was  less  difficult  than  I  imagined.  I  think 
she  takes  a  kind  of  pride  in  conquering  her  prejudices, 
and  being  true  to  the  real  breadth  of  her  nature." 

"  I  am  sure  she  would  like  her  nature  to  be  broad. 
She  might  very  well  be  content  that  it  is  charming. 
And  what  is  the  difference  between  her  hostility  and 
mine?  " 

"The  main  difference,"  Lindsay  said,  with  a  gay 
half  round  upon  her,  "  is  that  hers  has  sweetly  van- 
ished, while  yours" — he  made  a  dramatic  gesture — 
"walks  between  us." 

"  I  know.  I  tried  to  stiffen  her.  I  appealed  to  the 
worst  in  her  on  your  behalf.  But  it  wasn't  any  use. 
She  succumbed,  as  you  say,  to  her  nobler  instincts." 

Hilda  stabbed  a  great  crisp  fallen  teak  leaf  with  her 
parasol,  and  spent  the  grimness  of  this  in  twirling  it. 

"  One  can  so  easily  get  an  affair  of  one's  own  out  of 
all  proportion — "  Duff  said.  "  And  I  should  be  sorry 
— do  you  really  want  me  to  talk  about  this  ?  " 

"  Don't  be  stupid.     Of  course." 

He  took  her  permission  with  plain  avidity. 

"  Well,  it  grew  plain  to  Miss  Livingstone,  as  it  will 
to  everybody  else  who  knows  or  cares,"  he  said ;  "  I 


HILDA. 


189 


mean  chiefly  Laura's,  tremendous  desirability.  Her 
beauty  would  go  for  something  anywhere,  but  I  don't 
want  to  insist  on  that.  What  marks  her  even  more  is 
the  wonderful  purity  and  transparency  of  her  mind ; 
one  doesn't  find  it  often  now,  women's  souls  are  so 
clouded  with  knowledge.  I  think  that  sort  of  thing 
appeals  especially  to  me  because  my  own  design  isn't 
in  the  least  esoteric.  I'm  only  a  man.  Then  she  was 
so  ludicrously  out  of  her  element.  A  creature  like 
that  should  be  surrounded  by  the  softest  refinement 
in  her  daily  life.  That  was  my  chance.  I  could  offer 
her  her  place.  It's  not  much  to  counterbalance  what 
she  is,  but  it  helps,  roughly  speaking,  to  equalise  mat- 
ters." 

Hilda  looked  at  him  with  sudden  critical  interest, 
missing  an  emanation  from  him.  It  was  his  enthusi- 
asm. A  cheerfulness  had  come  upon  him  instead. 
Also  what  he  said  had  something  categorical  in  it, 
something  crisp  and  arranged.  He  himself  received 
benefit  from  the  consideration  of  it,  and  she  was  aware 
that  if  this  result  followed,  her  own  "  conversion " 
was  of  very  secondary  importance. 

"  So  !  "  she  said  meditatively,  as  they  walked. 

"  After  it  happens,  when  it  is  an  accomplished  fact, 
it  will  be  so  plainly  right  that  nobody  will  think  twice 
about  it,"  Duff  went  on  in  an  encouraged  voice. 
"  It's  odd  how  one's  ideas  materialise.  I  want  her 
drawing-room  to  be  white  and  gold,  with  big  yellow 
silk  cushions." 

"  When  is  it  to  happen  ?  " 

"  Beginning  of  next  cold  weather — in  not  quite  a 
year." 

"  Ah !  then  there  will  be  time.    Time  to  get  the 


190  HILDA. 

white  and  gold   furniture.     It  wouldn't  be  my  taste 
quite.     Is  it  Alicia's?" 

"  It's  our  own  at  present,  Laura's  and  mine.  We 
have  talked  it  over  together.  And  I  don't  think  she 
would  ask  Miss  Livingstone.  In  matters  of  taste 
women  are  rather  rivals,  aren't  they  ?  " 

"Oh,  Lord!"  Hilda  exclaimed,  and  bit  her  lip. 
"  Where  is  Miss  Filbert  now?  " 

"At  No.  10,  Middleton  street." 

"With  the  Livingstones?  " 

"  Is  it  so  astonishing?  Miss  Livingstone  has  been 
most  practical  in  her  kindness.  I  have  gone  back,  of 
course,  to  my  perch  at  the  club,  and  Laura  is  to  stay 
with  them  until  she  sails." 

"She  sails?" 

"  In  the  Sutlej,  next  Wednesday.  She's  got  three 
months'  leave.  She  really  hasn't  been  well,  and  her 
superior  officer  is  an  accommodating  old  sort.  She 
resigns  at  home,  and  I'm  sending  her  to  some  dear  old 
friends  of  mine.  She  hasn't  any  particular  people  of 
her  own.  She's  got  a  notion  of  taking  lessons  of 
some  kind— perfectly  unnecessary,  but  if  it  amuses 
her — during  the  summer.  And  of  course  she  will  have 
to  get  her  outfit  together." 

"And  in  December,"  said  Hilda,  "she  comes  out 
and  marries  you." 

"  Not  a  Calcutta  wedding.  I  meet  her  in  Madras 
and  we  come  up  together." 

"Ideal,"  said  Hilda;  "and  is  Calcutta  much  scan- 
dalised ?  " 

"  Calcutta  doesn't  know.  If  I  had  had  my  way  in 
the  beginning  I  fancy  I  would  have  trumpeted  it. 
But  now  I  suppose  it's  wiser — why  should  one  offer 
her  up  at  their  dinner-tables?" 


HILDA. 


191 


"  Especially  when  they  wo  .ad  make  so  little  of 
her,"  said  Hilda  absently. 

The  coolie-track  had  led  them  into  the  widest  part 
of  the  Maidan,  where  it  slopes  to  the  south,  and  the 
huts  of  Bovvanipore.  There  was  nothing  about  them 
but  a  spreading  mellowness  and  the  baked  turf  under- 
foot. The  cloudy  yellow  twilight  disclosed  that  a 
man  a  little  way  off  was  a  man  and  not  a  horse  but 
did  hardly  more.  "  I'm  tired,"  Hilda  said  suddenly, 
"  let  us  sit  down,"  and  sank  comfortably  on  the 
fragrant  grass.  Lindsay  dropped  beside  her  and  they 
sat  for  a  moment  in  silence.  A  cricket  chirped 
noisily  a  few  inches  from  them.  Hilda  put  out  her 
hand  in  that  direction  and  it  ceased.  Sounds  wan- 
dered across  from  the  encircling  city,  evening  sounds, 
softened  in  their  vagrancy,  and  lights  came  out,  topaz 
points  in  the  level  glow. 

"  She  is  making  a  tremendous  sacrifice,"  Lindsay 
went  on  ;  "I  seem  to  see  its  proportions  more  clearly 
now." 

Hilda  glanced  at  him  with  infinite  kindness.  "  You 
are  an  awfully  good  sort.  Duff,"  she  said,  "  I  wish  you 
were  out  of  Asia." 

"  Oh,  a  magnificent  sort."  The  irony  was  contem- 
plative, as  if  he  examined  himself  to  see. 

"  You  can  make  her  life  delightful  to  her.  The 
sacrifice  will  not  endure,  you  know." 

"  One  can  try.  It  will  be  worth  doing."  He  said 
it  as  if  it  were  a  maxim,  and  Hilda,  perceiving  this, 
had  no  answer  ready.  As  they  sat  without  speaking, 
the  heart  of  the  after-glow  drew  away  across  the  river 
and  left  something  chill  and  empty  in  the  spaces  about 
them.    Things  grew  hard  of  outline,  the  Maidan  be- 


192  ^  HILDA. 

came  an  unlimited  expanse  of  commonplace,  grey  and 
unyielding  ;  the  lines  of  gas-lamps  on  the  roads  came 
very  near.  "  What  a  difference  it  makes !  "  Lindsay 
exclaimed,  looking  after  the  vanished  light,  "  and  how 
suddenly  it  goes! " 

Hilda  turned  concerned  eyes  upon  him,  and  then 
looked  with  keen  sadness  far  into  the  changed  land- 
scape. "  Ah,  well,  my  dear,"  she  said  with  apparent 
irrelevance,  "we  must  take  hold  of  life  with  both 
hands."  She  made  a  movement  to  rise,  and  he,  jump- 
ing to  his  feet,  helped  her.  As  if  the  moment  had 
some  special  significance,  something  to  be  underlined, 
he  kept  her  hand  while  he  said,  "You  will  always 
represent  something  in  mine.  I  can  depend  upon 
you — I  shall  know  that  you  are  there." 

"Yes,"  she  said,  sincerely,  "Yes,  indeed ;"  and  it 
seemed  to  her  that  he  looked  thin  and  intense  as  he 
stood  beside  her — unless  it  was  only  another  efTect  of 
atmosphere.  "  After  all,"  she  said,  as  they  turned  to 
walk  back  again  across  the  withered  grass,  "your 
fever  has  taken  a  good  deal  out  of  you." 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Finally  the  days  of  Laura  Filbert's  sojourn  under 
the  Livingstones'  roof  followed  each  other  into  the 
past  that  is  not  much  pondered.  Alicia  at  one  time 
valued  the  impression  that  life  in  Calcutta  disappeared 
entirely  into  this  kind  of  history,  that  one's  memory 
there  was  a  rubbish  heap  of  which  one  naturally  did  not 
trouble  to  stir  up  the  dust.  It  gave  a  soothing  wist- 
fulness  to  discontent  to  think  this,  which  a  discerning 
glance  might  often  have  seen  about  her  lips  and  eye- 
brows as  she  lay  back  among  her  carriage  cushions 
under  the  flattery  of  the  south  wind  in  the  course  of 
her  evening  drive.  She  had  ceased  latterly,  however, 
to  note  particularly  that  or  any  impression.  Such 
things  require  range  and  atmosphere,  and  she  seemed 
to  have  no  more  command  over  these;  her  outlook 
was  blocked  by  crowding,  narrowing  facts.  There 
was  certainly  no  room  for  perceptions  creditable  to 
one's  intellect  or  one's  taste.  Also  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  Alicia  would  have  tried  the  days  of  her 
hospitality  to  Captain  Filbert  by  her  general  standard 
of  worthlessness.  She  turned  away  from  them  more 
actively  than  from  the  rest,  but  it  was  because  they 
bristled,  naturally  enough,  with  dilemmas  and  dis- 
tresses which  she  made  a  literal  effort  to  forget.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  there  were  not  very  many  days,  and 
they  were  largely   filled   with   millinery.     Even   the 


194  HILDA. 

dilemmas  and  distresses,  when  they  asserted  them- 
selves, were  more  or  less  overswept,  as  if  for  the  sake 
of  decency,  by  billows  of  spotted  muslin,  with  which 
Celine,  who  felt  the  romance  of  the  situation,  made 
herself  marvellously  clever.  Celine,  indeed,  was 
worth  in  this  exigency  many  times  her  wages. 
Alicia  hastened  to  "  lend  "  her  to  the  fullest  extent, 
and  she  spent  hours  with  Miss  Filbert  contriving  and 
arranging,  a  kind  of  conductor  of  her  mistress's  be- 
neficence. It  became  plain  that  Laura  preferred  the 
conductor  to  the  source,  and  they  stitched  together 
while  she,  with  careful  reserves,  watched  for  the  casual 
sidelights  upon  modes  and  manners  that  came  from 
the  lips  of  the  maid.  At  other  times  she  occupied 
herself  with  her  Bible — she  had  adopted,  as  will  be 
guessed,  the  grateful  theory  of  Mrs.  Sand,  that  she 
had  only  changed  the  sphere  of  her  ministrations. 
She  had  several  times  felt,  seated  beside  Celine,  how 
grateful  she  ought  to  be  that  her  spiritual  paths  for 
the  future  would  be  paths  of  such  pleasantness,  though 
Celine  herself  seemed  to  stand  rather  far  from  their 
border,  probably  because  she  was  a  Catholic.  Mrs. 
Sand  came  occasionally  to  upbuild  her,  and  after  that 
Laura  had  always  a  fresh  remembrance  of  how  much 
she  had  done  in  giving  so  generous  a  friend  as  Duff 
Lindsay  to  the  Army  in  Calcutta.  It  was  reasonable 
enough  that  there  should  be  a  falling  off  in  Mr.  Lind- 
say's attendance  just  now  in  Laura's  absence,  but  when 
they  were  united,  Mrs.  Sand  hoped  there  would  be 
very  few  evening  services  when  she,  the  Ensign,  would 
miss  their  bright  faces.  Lindsay  himself  came  every 
afternoon,  and  Laura  made  his  tea  for  him  with  pre- 
cision, and  pressed  upon  him,  solicitously,  everything 


HILDA.  195 

there  was  to  eat.  He  found  her  submissive  and  wish- 
ful to  be  pleasant.  She  sat  up  straight  and  said  it 
was  much  hotter  than  they  had  it  this  time  of  year  up- 
country  but  nothing  at  all  to  complain  of  yet.  He 
also  discovered  her  to  be  practical ;  she  showed  him 
the  bills  for  the  muslins,  and  explained  one  or  two 
bargains.  She  seemed  to  wish  to  make  it  clear  to  him 
that  it  need  not  be,  after  all,  so  very  expensive  to  take  a 
wife.  In  the  course  of  a  few  days  one  of  the  costumes 
was  completed,  and  when  he  came  she  had  it  on,  ap- 
pearing before  him  for  the  first  time  in  secular  dress. 
The  stays  insisted  a  little  cruelly  on  the  lines  of  her 
figure,  and  the  tight  bodice  betrayed  her  narrow- 
chested.  Above  its  frills  her  throat  protruded  un- 
usually, with  a  curve  outward  like  that  of  some  wading 
birds,  and  her  arms,  in  their  unaccustomed  sleeves, 
hung  straight  at  her  sides.  She  had  put  on  a  hat 
that  matched  :  it  was  the  kind  of  pretty,  disorderly 
hat  with  waving  flowers  that  demands  the  shadow  of 
short  hair  along  the  forehead,  and  she  had  not 
thought  of  that  way  of  making  it  becoming.  Among 
these  accessories  the  significance  of  her  face  retreated 
to  a  point  vague  and  distant ;  its  lightly-pencilled  lines 
seemed  half  erased.  She  made  no  demand  upon  him 
for  admiration  on  this  occasion,  she  seemed  sufficiently 
satisfied  with  herself ;  but  after  a  time,  when  they 
were  sitting  together  on  the  sofa,  and  he  still  pursued 
the  lines  of  her  garment  with  questioning  eyes,  she 
recalled  him  to  the  conventionalities  of  the  situation. 

"  You  needn't  be  afraid  of  mussing  it,"  she  said. 

The  ship  she  took  her  departure  in  sailed  from  its 
jetty  in  the  river  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Prep- 
arations   for   her  comfort  had  been  completed  over 


196  HILDA. 

night ;  indeed,  she  slept  on  board,  and  Duff  had  only  the 
duty  and  the  sentiment  of  actual  parting  in  the  morn- 
ing. He  found  her  in  a  sequestered  corner  of  the  fresh- 
swabbed  quarter-deck.  She  wore  her  Anr.y  clothes — 
she  had  come  on  board  in  one  of  the  muslins — and  she 
was  softly  crying.  From  the  jetty  on  the  other  side 
of  the  ship  arose,  amid  tramping  feet  and  shouted  or- 
ders and  the  creaking  of  the  luggage-crane,  the  over- 
ruling sound  of  a  hymn.  Ensign  Sand  and  a  company 
had  come  apparently  to  pay  the  last  rites  to  a  fellow- 
officer  whom  they  should  no  more  meet  on  earth, 
bearing  her  heavenly  commission. 

"  Farewell,  faithful  friend,  we  must  now  bid  adieu 
To  those  joys  and  pleasures  we've  tasted  with  you. 
We've  laboured  together,  united  in  heart, 
But  now  we  must  close,  and  soon  we  must  part." 

They  had  said  good-bye  to  her  and  God  bless  you, 
all  of  them,  but  they  evidently  meant  to  sing  the  ship 
out  of  port.  Lindsay  sat  down  beside  the  victim  of 
the  demonstration  and  quietly  took  her  hand.  There 
was  a  consciousness  newly  guilty  in  his  discomfort, 
which  he  owed  perhaps  to  a  ghost  of  futility  that 
seemed  to  pace  up  and  down  before  him,  between  the 
ranks  of  the  steamer-chairs.  Nevertheless,  as  she 
presently  turned  a  calmed  face  to  him  with  her  pale 
apology,  he  had  the  sensation  of  a  rebound  toward  the 
ideal  that  had  finally  perished  in  the  spotted  muslin, 
and  when  a  little  later  he  watched  the  long  backward 
trail  of  smoke  as  the  steamer  moved  down  the  clear 
morning  river,  he  remembered  that  it  was  a  satisfac- 
tion to  have  prevailed. 

The  Su^/ej  had  gone  far  on  her  tranquil  course  by 


HILDA. 


19; 


the  evening  of  a  dinner  in  Middleton  street,  at  which 
the  guests,  it  was  understood,  were  to  proceed  later  to 
a  party  given  at  Government  House  by  his  Excellency 
the  Viceroy.  Alicia,  when  she  included  Duff  in  her 
invitations,  felt  an  assurance  that  the  steamer  must  by 
that  time  have  reached  Aden,  and  rose  almost  with 
buoyancy  to  the  illusion  you  can  make,  if  you  like,  with 
the  geographical  mile.  She  could  hardly  have  left 
him  out  in  any  case — he  could  almost  have  demanc  ^d 
an  explanation — since  it  was  one  of  those  parties 
which  she  gave  every  now  and  then,  undiscouraged, 
with  the  focus  of  Hilda  Howe.  It  had  to  be  every 
now  and  then,  because  Calcutta  society  was  so  Httle 
adapted  to  appreciate  meeting  talented  actresses — 
there  were  so  many  people  whom  Alicia  had  to  con- 
sider as  to  whether  they  would  "mind."  Hilda  mar- 
velled at  the  sanguine  persistence  of  Miss  Livingstone's 
efforts  in  this  direction,  the  results  were  so  fragment- 
ary, so  dislocated  and  indecisive,  but  she  also  rejoiced. 
She  took  life,  as  may  have  appeared,  at  a  broad  and 
generous  level,  it  quite  comprehended  the  salient 
points  of  a  Calcutta  dinner  party  ;  and  it  was  seldom 
that  she  failed,  metaphorically  speaking,  to  carry  away 
a  bone  from  the  feast.  If  you  found  this  reprehensi- 
ble, she  would  have  told  you  she  had  observed  that 
they  do  it  in  Japan,  where  manners  are  the  best  in  the 
world. 

Doubtless  Hilda  would  have  dwelt  longer  upon  such 
a  dinner-party  than  I,  with  no  consolatory  bone  to 
gnaw  in  private,  find  myself  inclined  to  do.  To  me  it 
is  depressing,  and  a  little  cruel,  to  be  compelled  to  be- 
tray the  inadequacy  of  the  personal  element  at  Alicia's 
banquets,  especially  in  connection  with  the  conspicuous 


198  HILDA. 

excellence  of  the  cooking.  A  poverty  of  cuisine  would 
have  provoked  no  constrast,  and  one  irony  the  less 
would  have  been  offered  up  to  the  ^ods  that  season. 
The  limitations  of  her  resources  were,  of  course,  arbi- 
trary, that  is  plain  in  the  fact  that  she  asked  such  a 
person  as  the  Head  of  the  Department  of  Education, 
with  no  better  reason  than  that  he  had  laid  almost  the 
whole  of  Shelley  under  critical  notes  for  the  benefit  of 
Calcutta  University,  and  the  necessary  item,  his  wife, 
who  did  even  less  harm  by  making  exquisite  lamp- 
shades. There  was  a  civilian  who  had  written  a  few  ' 
years  before  an  article  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  about 
the  aboriginal  tribes  of  Madras,  and  the  lady  attached 
to  him,  who  had  been  at  one  time  the  daughter  of  a 
Lieutenant-Governor.  The  Barberrys  were  there  be- 
cause Mrs.  BarberrjMoved  meeting  anybody  that  was 
clever,  admired  brains  beyond  anything ;  and  an  Aide- 
de-Camp  who  had  to  be  asked  because  Mrs.  Barberry 
was,  and  Captain  Salter  Symmes,  who  took  leading 
male  parts  in  Mr.  Pinero's  plays  when  they  were  pro- 
duced in  Simla,  and  was  invariably  considered  up 
there  to  have  done  them  better  than  any  professional 
they  have  at  home,  though  he  was  even  more  success-  ^ 

ful  as  a  contortionist  when  the  entertainment  hap- 
pened to  be  a  burlesque.  Taking  Hilda  and  Lindsay 
and  Stephen  Arnold  as  a  basis,  Alicia  had  built  up 
her  party,  with  the  contortionist,  as  it  were,  at  the 
apex,  on  his  head.  The  Livingstones  had  family  con- 
nection with  a  leading  London  publishing  firm,  and 
Alicia  may  possibly  have  reflected,  as  she  surveyed  her 
completed  work,  how  much  better  than  capering  cap- 
tains she  could  have  done  in  Chelsea,  though  it  cannot 
be  admitted  likely  that  she  would  harbour,  at  that  par- 


HILDA. 


199 


ticular  instant,  so  ungracious  a  thought.  And  indeed 
it  was  a  creditable  party  ;  it  would  almost  unanimously 
call  itself,  next  day,  a  delightful  one.  Miss  Howe 
made  the  most  agreeable  excitement — you  might  al- 
most have  heard  the  heart-beats  of  the  wife  of  the 
literary  and  on  one  occasion  current  civilian,  as  she 
just  escaped  being  introduced,  and  so  availed  herself 
of  the  dinner's  opportunity  for  intimate  observation 
without  letting  herself  in  a  particle — most  clever. 
Mrs.  Barberry,  of  course,  rushed  upon  the  spear,  as  she 
always  did,  and  made  a  gushing  little  speech,  with 
every  eye  upon  her,  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  with- 
out a  thought  of  consequences.  The  Aide-de-Camp 
was  also  empress^,  one  would  have  thought  that  he 
was  acting  himself,  the  way  he  bowed  and  picked  up 
Hilda's  fan — a  grace  lingered  in  it  from  the  minuet  he 
had  danced  the  week  before,  in  rufifles  and  patches, 
with  the  daughter  of  the  Commander-in-Chief.  Duff 
got  out  of  the  way  to  enable  the  newly-introduced 
Head  of  the  Department  of  Education  to  inform  Miss 
Howe  that  he  never  went  to  the  theatre  in  Calcutta 
himself,  it  was  much  too  badly  ventilated  ;  and  Stephen 
Arnold,  arriving  late,  shot  like  an  embarrassed  arrow 
through  the  company  to  Alicia's  side,  and  was  still 
engaged  there  in  grieved  explanation  when  dinner  was 
announced. 

There  were  pink  water-lilies,  and  Stephen  said  grace 
— those  were  the  pictorial  features.  Half  of  the  peo- 
ple had  taken  their  seats  when  he  began  ;  there  was  a 
hasty  scramble,  and  a  decorous,  half-checked  smile. 
Hilda,  at  the  first  word  of  the  brief  formula,  blushed 
hotly ;  then  she  stood  while  he  spoke,  with  bowed 
head  and   clasped   hands,  like  a  reverently  inclining 


200  HILDA. 

statue.  Her  long  lashes  brushed  her  cheek  ;  she  dr.^w 
a  kind  of  isolation  from  the  way  her  manner  under- 
lined the  office.  The  civilian's  wife,  with  a  side-glance, 
settled  it  off-hand  that  she  was  absurdly  affected  ;  and, 
indeed,  to  an  acuter  intelli^^ence  it  might  have  looked 
as  if  she  tool:,  with  the  artistry  of  habit,  a  cue  that 
was  not  offered. 

That  was  the  one  instant,  however,  in  which  the  civil- 
ian's wife,  observing  the  actress,  was  gratified  ;  and  it 
was  so  brief  that  she  complained  afterward  that  Miss 
Howe  was  disappointing.  She  certainly  went  out  of 
her  way  to  be  normal.  Since  it  was  her  daily  busi- 
ness to  personate  exceptional  individuals,  it  seemed 
to  be  her  pleasure  that  night  to  be  like  everybody  else. 
She  did  it  on  opulent  lines ;  there  was  a  rirhness  in 
her  agreement  that  the  going  was  as  hard  as  iron  on 
the  Ellenborough  course,  and  a  soft  ingenuousness  in 
her  inquiries  about  punkahs  and  the  brain-fever  bird 
that  might  have  aroused  suspicion,  but  after  a  brief 
struggle  to  respond  to  the  unusualness  she  ought  to 
have  represented,  Alicia's  guests  gratefully  accepted 
her  on  their  own  terms  instead.  She  expanded  in  the 
light  and  the  glow  and  the  circumstance ;  she  looked 
with  warm  pleasure  at  the  orchids  the  men  wore  and 
the  jewelled  necks  of  the  women.  The  social  essence 
of  Alicia's  little  dinner-party  passed  into  her,  and  she 
moved  her  head  like  the  civilian's  wife.  She  felt  the 
champagne  investing  her  chatter  and  the  chatter  of 
the  Head  of  the  Department  of  Education  with  the 
most  satisfying  qualities,  which  were  only  very  slightly 
dashed  when  she  glanced  over  the  brim  of  her  glass  at 
Stephen,  sitting  at  the  turn  of  the  oval,  giving  a 
gravely   humble  but   perfunctory   attention  to  Mrs. 


HILDA.  201 

Barberry  and  drinking  water.  The  occasion  grew  be- 
fore her  into  a  gorgeous  flower,  living,  pulsating,  and 
in  the  heart  of  its  light  and  colour  the  petals  closed 
over  her  secret,  over  him,  the  unconscious  priest  with 
the  sloping  shoulders,  thinking  of  abstinence  and  lis- 
tening to  Mrs.  Barberry. 

It  transpired,  when  the  men  came  up,  that  there  was 
no  unanimity  about  going  to  Government  House. 
The  Livingstones  craved  the  necessity  of  absence,  if 
anyone  would  supply  it  by  staying  on  ;  it  would  be  a 
boon,  they  said,  and  cited  the  advancement  of  the 
seaion.  "  One  gets  to  bed  so  much  earlier,"  Surgeon- 
Major  Livingstone  urged,  at  which  Alicia  raised  her 
eyebrows  and  everybody  laughed.  Lindsay  elected 
to  gratify  them,  with  the  proclaimed  purpose  of  seeing 
how  long  Livingstone  could  be  kept  up,  and  the 
civilian  pair  agreed,  apparently  from  an  inert  tendency 
to  remain  seated.  The  Aide-de-Camp  had,  of  course, 
to  go;  duty  called  him;  and  he  declared  a  sense  of 
slighted  hospitality  that  anybody  should  remain  be- 
hind. "  Besides,"  he  cried,  with  ingenuous  privilege, 
"  who's  goin*  to  chaperone  Miss  Howe  ?  " 

Hilda  stood  In  the  midst.  Tall  in  violet  velvet,  she 
had  a  flush  that  made  her  magnificent ;  her  eyes  were 
deep  and  soft.  It  was  patent  that  she  was  out  of 
proportion  to  the  other  women,  body  and  soul ;  there 
was  altogether  too  much  of  her ;  and  it  was  only  the 
men,  when  Captain  Corby  spoke,  who  looked  silently 
responsive. 

"  We're  coming  away  so  early,"  said  Mrs.  Barberry, 
buttoning  her  glove.  Hilda  had  begun  to  smile,  and, 
indeed,  the  situation  had  its  humour,  but  there  was 
also  behind  her  eyes  an  appreciation  of  another  sort. 


202  HILDA. 

"  Don't,"  she  said  to  Alicia,  in  the  low,  quick  reach  of 
her  prompting  tone,  as  if  the  other  had  mistaken  her 
cue,  but  the  moment  hardly  permitted  retreat,  and 
Alicia  turned  an  unflinching,  graceful  front  to  the  lady 
in  the  Department  of  Education.  "  Then  I  think  I 
must  ask  you,"  she  said. 

The  educational  husband  was  standing  so  near 
Hilda  that  she  got  the  very  dregs  of  the  glance  of 
consternation  his  little  wife  gave  him  as  she  replied, 
a  trifle  red  and  stiff,  that  she  was  sure  she  would  be 
delighted. 

"  Nobody  suggests  me  !  "  exclaimed  Captain  Corby, 
resentfully.  They  were  gathered  in  the  hall,  the  car- 
riages were  driving  to  the  open  door,  the  Barberrys* 
glistening  brougham  whisking  them  off,  and  then  the 
battered  vehicle  in  Hilda's  hire.  It  had  an  air  of 
ludicrous  foriornity,  with  its  damaged  paint  and  its 
tied-up  harness.  Hilda,  when  its  door  closed  upon 
the  purple  vision  of  her,  might  have  been  a  modern 
Cinderella  in  mid-stage  of  backward  transformation. 

"  I  could  chaperone  you  all ! "  she  cried  gaily  back 
at  them  as  she  passed  down  the  steps ;  and  in  the  re- 
lief of  the  general  exclamation  it  seemed  reasonable 
enough  that  Stephen  Arnold  should  lean  into  the 
gharry  to  see  that  she  was  quite  comfortable.  The 
unusual  thing,  which  nobody  else  heard,  was  that  he 
said  to  her  then  with  shamed  discomfort,  "  It  doesn  t 
matter — it  doesn't  matter,"  and  that  Hilda,  driving 
away,  found  herself  without  a  voice  to  answer  the 
good-nights  they  chorussed  after  her. 

Arnold  begged  a  seat  in  Captain  Corby's  dog-cart, 
and  Hilda,  with  her  purple  train  in  her  lap,  heard  the 
wheels  following  all  the  way.     She  re-encountered  the 


^    HILDA.  203 

lady  to  whom  she  had  been  entrusted,  whose  name  it 
occurs  to  me  was  Winstick,  in  the  cloak-room.  They 
were  late  ;  there  was  hardly  anybody  else  but  the  at- 
tendants;  and  Mrs.  Winstick  smiled  freely  and  said 
she  loved  the  colour  of  Hilda's  dress ;  also  that  she 
would  give  worlds  for  an  invisible  hair-pin — oh,  thank 
you  ! — and  that  it  was  simply  ducky  of  her  Excellency 
to  have  pink  powder  as  well  as  white  put  out.  She 
did  hope  Miss  Howe  would  enjoy  the  evening — they 
would  meet  again  later  on  ;  she  must  not  forget  to 
look  at  the  chunam  pillars  in  the  ball-room — perfectly 
lovely.  So  she  vanished  ;  but  Hilda  went  with  cer- 
tainty into  the  corridor  to  find  Arnold  pacing  up  and 
down  the  red  strip  of  carpet,  with  his  hands  clasped 
behind  him  and  his  head  thrust  forward,  waiting  for 
her. 

They  dropped  together  into  the  crowd  and  walked 
among  well-dressed  woman,  men  in  civilian  black  and 
men  in  uniform,  up  and  down  the  pillared  spaces  of 
the  ball-room.  People  had  not  been  asked  to  dance, 
and  they  seemed  to  walk  about  chiefly  for  observation. 
There  was,  of  course,  the  opportunity  of  talking  and 
of  listening  to  the  band  which  discoursed  in  a  corner 
behind  palms,  but  the  distraction  which  is  the  social 
Nemesis  of  bureaucracy  was  in  the  air,  visibly  increas- 
ing in  the  neighbourhoods  of  the  Viceroy  and  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, and  made  the  commonplaces  people 
uttered  to  each  other  disjointed  and  fragmentary,  while 
it  was  plain  that  few  were  aware  whether  music  was  be- 
ing rendered  or  not.  Anyone  sensitive  to  pervading 
mental  currents  in  gatherings  of  this  sort  would  have 
found  the  relief  of  concentration  and  directness  only 
near  the  buffet  that  ran  along  one  side  of  the  room, 


204  HILDA. 

where  the  natural  instinct  played,  without  impediment, 
upon  soup  and  sandwiches. 

They  did  not  look  much  at  Hilda,  even  on  the  arm 
of  her  liveried  priest.     She  was  a  strange  vessel,  sail- 
ing in  from  beyond  their  ken,  and  her  pilot  was  almost 
as  novel,   yet  they   were   incurious.     Their   interests 
were  not  in  any  way  diffused  :  they  had  one  straight 
line  and  it   led  upward,  pausing  at  the   personalities 
clerked  above  them,  with   an    ultimate   point   in  the 
head  of  a  department.     The  Head  of  the  Department 
was  the  only   person   unaware,  when  addressed,  of  a 
travelling  eye  in  search  over  his  shoulder  of  somebody 
with  whom  it  would   be  more  advantageous  to  con- 
verse.    Yet  there  were   a  few  people  apparently  not 
altogether  indifferent  to  the  presence  of  Miss  Howe. 
She  saw  them  here  and  there,  and  when  Arnold  said, 
"  It  must  seem  odd  to  you,  but  I  know  hardly  any- 
body here.     We  attempt  no  social  duties,"  she  singled 
out  this  one  and  that,  whom  Alicia  had  asked  to  meet 
her,  and  mentioned  them  to  him  with  a  warm  pleasure 
in  implying  one  of  the  advantages  of  belonging  to  the 
world  rather  than  to  the  cloister.     Stephen  knew  their 
names  and  their  dignities.     He  received  what  she  said 
with  suitably  impressed  eyebrow  and  nods  of  consid- 
erate assent.     Hilda  carried  him  along,  as  it  were,  in 
their  direction.     She  was  full  that  night  of  a  trium- 
phant sense  of  her  own  vitality,  her  success  and  value 
as  a  human  unit.     There  was  that  in  her  blood  which 
assured  her  of  a  welcome ;  it  had  logic  in  it,  with  the 
basis   of  her  rarity,  her  force,  her  distinction  among 
other  women.     She  pressed  forward  to  human  fellow- 
ship with  a  smile  on  her  lips,  as  a  delightful  matter  of 
course,  going  toward  the  people  who  were  not  indif- 


HILDA.  205 

ferent  to  the  fact  that  she  was  there,  who  could  not  be 
entirely,  since  they  had  some  sort  of  knowledge  of 
her. 

In  no  case  did  they  ignore  her,  but  they  were 
so  cheerfully  engaged  in  conversation  that  they  were 
usually  quite  oblivious  of  her.  She  encountered  this 
animated  absorption  two  or  three  times,  then,  turning, 
she  found  that  the  absorbed  ones  had  changed  their 
places — were  no  longer  in  her  path.  One  lady  put 
herself  at  a  safe  distance  and  then  bowed  with  much 
cordiality.  It  was  extraordinary  in  a  group  of  five 
how  many  glistening  backs  would  be  presented,  quite 
without  offence,  to  her  approach.  Mrs.  Winstick  had 
hidden  behind  the  Superintendent  of  Stamps  and 
Stationery,  to  whom  she  was  explaining,  between 
spoonfuls  of  strawberry  ice,  her  terrible  situation. 
And  from  the  lips  of  another  lady,  whose  face  she 
knew,  she  heard  after  she  had  passed,  "  Don't  you 
think  it's  rather  an  omnium  gatherum  ?  " 

It  was  like  Hilda  Howe  to  note  at  that  moment, 
with  serious  interest,  how  the  little  world  about  them 
had  the  same  negative  attitude  for  the  missionary 
priest  beside  her,  presenting  it  with  a  hardly  percepti- 
ble difference.  Within  its  limits  there  was  plainly  no 
room  for  him  either.  His  acquaintances — he  had  a 
few — bowed  with  the  kind  of  respect  which  implies 
distance,  and  in  the  wandering  eyes  of  the  others  it 
was  plain  that  he  did  not  exist.  She  saw,  too,  with  a 
very  delicate  pleasure,  that  he  carried  himself  in  his 
grave  humility  untouched  and  unconscious.  Expect- 
ing nothing,  he  was  unaware  that  he  received  nothing. 
It  was  odd,  and  in  its  way  charming,  that  she  who  saw 
and  knew  drew  from  their  mutual  grievance  a  sense 


. 


2o6  HILDA. 

of  pitiful  protection  for  him,  the  unconscious  one. 
For  herself,  the  tide  that  bore  her  on  was  too  deep  to 
let  these  things  hurt  her ;  she  looked  down  and  saw 
the  soreness  and  humiliation  of  them  pictorially,  at 
the  bottom,  gliding  smoothly  over.  They  brought  no 
stereotype  to  her  smile,  no  dissonance  to  what  she 
found  to  say.  When  at  last  she  and  Arnold  sat  down 
together  her  standpoint  was  still  superior,  and  she 
herself  was  so  aloof  from  it  all  that  she  could  talk 
about  it  without  bitterness,  divorcing  the  personal 
Peng  from  a  social  manifestation  of  some  dramatic 
value.  In  offering  up  her  egotism  that  way  she  really 
only  made  more  subtle  sacrifices  to  it,  but  one  could 
hardly  expect  such  a  consideration,  just  then,  to  give 
her  pause.  She  anointed  his  eyelids,  she  made  him 
see,  and  he  was  relieved  to  find  in  her  light  comment 
that  she  took  the  typical  Mrs.  Winstick  less  seriously 
than  he  had  supposed  when  they  drove  away  from  the 
Livingstones'.  It  could  not  occur  to  him  to  correct 
the  impression  he  had  then  by  the  sound  of  his  own 
voice  uttering  sympathy. 

"  But  I  know  now  what  a  wave  feels  like  dashing 
against  a  cliff,"  she  said.  "  Fancy  my  thinking  I 
could  impose  myself!     That  is  the  wave's  reflection." 

"  It  goes  back  into  the  sea,  which  is  its  own ;  and 
there,"  said  the  priest,  whom  nature  had  somehow 
cheated  by  the  false  promise  of  high  moralities  out  of 
an  inheritance  of  beauty,  "  and  there,  I  think,  is  depth 
and  change  and  mystery,  with  joy  in  the  obedience 
of  the  tides  and  a  full  beating  upon  many  shores " 

"Ah,  my  sea!  I  hear  it  calling  always,  even,"  she 
said  half-reflectively,  "  when  I  am  talking  to  you. 
But  sometimes  I  think  I  am  not  a  wave  at  all,  only  a 


HILDA.  207 

shell,  to  be  stranded  and  left,  always  with  the  calling 
in  my  ears  " — she  seemed  to  have  dropped  altogether 
into  reverie,  and  then  looked  up  suddenly,  laughing, 
because  he  could  not  understand. 

"  After  all,"  she  said  practically,  "  what  has  that  to 
do  with  it  ?  One  doesn't  blame  these  people.  They 
are  stupid — that's  all.  They  want  the  obvious.  The 
leading  lady  of  Mr.  Llewellyn  Stanhope — without  the 
smallest  diamond — who  does  song  and  dance  on  Sat- 
urday nights — what  can  you  expect.  If  I  were  famous 
they  would  be  pleased  enough  to  see  me.  It  is  one 
of  the  rewards  of  the  fame."  She  was  silent  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  she  added,  "  They  are  very  poor." 

"  Those  rewards !  I  have  sometimes  thought," 
Arnold  said,  "  that  you  were  not  devoured  by  thirst 
for  them." 

"  When  we  are  together,  you  and  I,"  she  answered 
simply,  "I  never  am." 

He  took  it  at  its  face  value.  They  had  had  some 
delightful  conversations.  If  her  words  awakened  any- 
thing in  him  it  was  the  remembrance  of  these.  The 
solace  of  her  companionship  presented  itself  to  him 
again,  and  her  statement  gave  their  mutual  confidence 
another  seal ;  that  was  all.  They  sat  where  they  were 
for  half  an  hour,  and  something  like  antagonism  and 
displeasure  toward  the  secretaries*  wives  settled  upon 
them,  for  which  Hilda,  interrupting  a  glance  or  two 
from  the  ladies  purring  past,  drew  suspicion.  "  I  am 
going  now,"  she  said.  "  It — it  isn't  quite  suitable 
here,"  and  there  was  just  enough  suggestion  in  the 
point  of  her  fan  to  make  him  think  of  his  frock.  "  It 
is  an  unpardonable  truth  that  if  we  stay  any  longer  I 
shall  make  people  talk  about  you." 


208  HILDA. 

He  turned  astonished  eyes  upon  her,  eyes  in  which 
she  remembered  afterward  there  was  absolutely  noth- 
ing but  a  literal  and  pained  apprehension  of  what  she 
said.  "  You  are  a  good  woman,"  he  exclaimed. 
*'  How  could  such  a  thing  be  possible?" 

The  faintest  embarrassment,  the  merest  suggestion 
of  distress,  came  into  her  face  and  concentrated  in  her 
eyes,  which  she  fixed  upon  him  as  if  she  would  bring 
his  words  to  the  last  analysis  and  answer  him  as  she 
would  answer  a  tribunal. 

"  A  good  woman  ?  "  she  repeated.  "  I  don't  know — 
isn't  that  a  refinement  of  virtue?  No,  standing  on 
my  sex,  I  make  no  claim,  but  as  people  go  I  am  good. 
Yes,  I  am  good." 

"  In  my  eyes  you  are  splendid,"  he  replied,  content, 
and  gave  her  his  arm.  They  went  together  through 
the  reception-rooms,  and  the  appreciation  of  her  grew 
in  him.  If  in  the  bright  and  silken  distance  he  had 
not  seen  his  Bishop  it  might  have  glowed  into  a  cordial- 
ity of  speech  with  his  distinctive  individual  stamp  on 
it.  But  he  saw  his  Bishop,  his  ceinture  tightened  on 
him,  and  he  uttered  only  the  trite  saying  about  the 
folly  of  counting  on  the  sensibility  of  swine. 

"  Yes,"  she  laughed  into  her  good-night  to  him, 
"but  I'm  not  sure  that  it  isn't  better  to  be  the  pig 
than  the  pearl." 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

"Not  long  ago,"  said  Hilda,  "I  had  a  chat  with 
him.  We  sat  on  the  grass  in  the  middle  of  the 
Maidan,  and  there  was  nothing  to  interfere  with  my 
impressions?" 

"  What  were  your  impressions  ?  No  !  "  Alicia  cried 
"No  !  Don't  tell  me.  It  is  all  so  peaceful  now,  and 
simple,  and  straightforward.  You  think  such  extra- 
ordinary  things.  He  comes  here  quite  often,  to  talk 
about  her.  He  is  coming  this  afternoon.  So  I  have 
impressions  too— and  they  are  just  as  good." 

"All  right."  Hilda  crossed  her  knees  more  com- 
(ortMy^  J^ma^  did  you  say  the  Surgeon-Major 
paid  for  those  Teheran  tiles  ?  " 

"  Something  absurd-IVe  forgotten.     He  writes  to 
her  regularly,  diary  letters,  by  every  mail." 
"  Do  you  tell  him  what  to  put  into  them  >  " 
"  Hilda,  sometimes-you're  positively  coarse  " 
"  I  dare  say,  my  dear.     You  didn't  come  out  of  a 
cab,  and  you   never  are.     I  like  being  coarse,  I  feel 
nearer  to  nature  then,  but  I   don't  say  that  as  an  ex- 
cuse.    I  hke  the  smell  of  warm  kitchens  and  the  talk 
of  bus-drivers,  and  bread  and  herrings  for  my  tea-all 
the  low  satisfactions  appeal  to  me.     Beer,  too,  and 
hand-organs. 

"  I  don't  know  when  to  believe  you.  He  talks 
about  her  quite  freely,  and-and  so  do  I.  She  is 
really  interesting  in  her  way." 


2IO  HILDA. 

"  And  in  perspective." 

"  Don't  be  odiously  smart.     He  and  Stephen  "—her 
glance  was  tentative—"  have  made  it  up." 
"  Oh  !  " 

"He  admits  now  that  Stephen  was  justified,  from 
his  point  of  view.  But  of  course  that  is  easy  enough 
when  you  have  come  off  best." 

"Of  course." 

"  Hilda,  what  do  you  M/«/&  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  think  it's  damnable— you  have  always  known 
what  I  think.  Have  you  seen  him  lately— I  mean 
your  cousin  ?  " 

"  He  lunched  with  us  yesterday.  He  was  more 
enthusiastic  than  ever  about  you." 

"  I  wish  you  could  tell  me  that  he  hadn't  mentioned 
my  name.  I  don't  want  his  enthusiasm.  The  pit 
gives  one  that." 

"  Hilda,  tell  me  ;  what  is  your  idea  of— of  what  it 
ought  to  be  ?  What  is  the  principal  part  of  it  ?  Not 
enthusiasm — adoration  ?  " 

"  Goodness,  no !  Something  quite  different  and 
quite  simple— too  simple  to  explain.  Besides,  it  is  a 
thing  tii7t  requires  the  completest  ignorance  to  dis- 
cuss coix  f ortably.  Do  you  want  me  to  vivisect  my 
soul?  You  yourself,  can  you  talk  about  what  most 
possesses  you?" 

"  Oh,"  .  -t-ested  Alicia,  "  I  wasn't  thinking  about 
myself,"  i  ad  at  the  same  moment  the  door  opened 
and  Hilda  said,  "Ah,  Mr.  Lindsay!  " 

There  was  a  hint  of  the  unexpected  in  Duff's  re- 
sponse to  Miss  Howe's  greeting,  and  a  suggestion  in 
the  way  he  sat  down  that  this  made  a  difference,  and 
that  it  would  be  necessary  to  find  other  things  to  say. 


, 


HILDA. 


211 


He  found  them  with  facility,  while  Hilda  decided 
that  she  would  finish  her  tea  before  she  went.  Alicia, 
busy  with  the  urn,  seemed  satisfied  to  abandon  them 
to  each  other,  to  take  a  decorative  place  in  the  con- 
versation, interrupting  it  with  brief  inquiries  about 
cream  ind  sugar.  Alicia  waited ;  it  was  her  way  ;  she 
sank  almost  palpably  into  the  tapestries  until  some 
reviving  circumstance  should  bring  her  out  again,  a 
process  which  was  quite  compatible  with  her  little 
laughs  and  comments.  She  waited,  offering  repose, 
and  unconscious  even  of  that.  You  know  Hilda 
Howe  as  a  creature  of  bold  reflections.  Looking  at 
Alicia  Livingstone  behind  the  tea-pot,  the  conviction 
visited  her  that  a  sex  three-quarters  of  this  fibre  ex- 
plained the  monastic  clergy. 

"  It  is  reported  that  you  have  performed  the  won- 
derful, the  impossible,"  Lindsay  said  ;  **  that  Llewellyn 
Stanhope  goes  home  solvent." 

"  I  don't  know  how  he  can  help  it  now.  But  I 
have  to  be  very  firm  with  him.  He's  on  his  knees  to 
me  to  do  Ibsen.  I  tell  him  I  will  if  he'll  combine 
with  Jimmy  Finnigan  and  bring  the  Surprise  Party 
on  between  the  acts.  The  only  way  it  would  go,  in 
this  capital." 

"Oh,  do  produce  Ibsen,"  Alicia  exclaimed.  "I've 
never  seen  one  of  his  plays — doesn't  it  sound  terri- 
ble ?  " 

"  If  people  will  elect  to  live  upon  a  coral  strand — 
oh,  I  should  like  to,  for  you  and  Duff  here,  but  Ibsen 
is  the  very  last  man  to  deliver  to  a  scratch  company. 
He  must  have  equal  merit,  or  there's  no  meaning. 
You  see,  he  makes  none  of  the  vulgar  appeals.  It 
would  be  a  tame  travesty — nobody  could  redeem   it 


212  HILDA. 

alone.  You  must  keep  to  the  old  situations,  the  reli- 
able old  dodges,  when  you  play  in  any  part  of  Asia." 
"  I  never  shall  cease  to  regret  that  I  didn't  see  you 
in  The  Reproach  of  Galilee,''  Duff  said;  "everyone 
who  knows  the  least  bit  about  it  said  you  were  mar- 
vellous in  that." 

"  Marvellous,"  said  Alicia. 

Hilda  gazed  straight  before  her  for  an  instant  with- 
out speaking.  The  others  looked  at  her  absent  eyes. 
"A  bazaar  trick  or  two  helped  me,"  she  said,  and 
glanced  with  vivacity  at  any  other  subject  that  might 
be  hanging  on  the  wall  or  visible  out  of  the  window. 

"And  are  you  really  invincible  about  not  putting  it 
on  again  in  Calcutta?  "  Duff  asked. 

"  Not  in  Calcutta,  or  anywhere.  The  rest  hate  it — 
nobody  has  a  chance  but  me,"  Hilda  said,  and  got 
up. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,"  Alicia  began,  but  Miss  Howe 
was  already  half  way  out  of  the  discussion  in  the 
direction  of  the  door.  There  was  often  a  brusqueness 
in  her  comings  and  goings,  but  she  usually  left  a 
flavour  of  herself  behind.  One  turned  with  facility 
to  talk  about  her,  this  being  the  easiest  way  of  apply, 
ing  the  stimulus  that  came  of  talking  to  her.  It  was 
more  conspicuous  than  either  of  these  two  realised 
that  they  accepted  her  retreat  without  a  word,  that 
there  was  even  between  them  a  consciousness  of  satis- 
faction that  she  had  gone. 

"  This  morning's  mail,"  said  Alicia,  smiling  brightly 
at  him,  "  brought  you  a  letter,  I  know."  It  was  ex- 
traodinary  how  detached  she  was  from  her  vital  per- 
sonal concern  in  him.  It  seemed  relegated  to  some 
background  of  her  nature  while  she  occupied  herself 


HILDA. 


213 


with  the  play  of  ch'cumstances  or  was  lost   in  her 
observation  of  him. 

"  How  kind  of  you  to  think  of  it,"  Lindsay  said. 
**  This  was  the  first  by  which  I  could  possibly  hear 
from  England." 

"Ah,  well,  now  you  will  have  no  more  anxiety. 
Letters  from  on  board  ship  are  always  difficult  to 
write  and  unsatisfactory,"  Alicia  said.  Miss  Filbert's 
had  been  postcards,  with  a  wide  unoccupied  margin 
at  the  bottom. 

"  The  Sutlej  seems  to  have  arrived  on  the  3rd  ; 
that's  a  day  later,  isn't  it,  than  we  made  out  she  would 
be?" 

Alicia  consulted  her  memory  and  found  she  couldn't 
be  sure.  Lindsay  was  vexed  by  a  similar  uncertainty, 
but  they  agreed  that  the  date  was  early  in  the  month. 

"  Did  they  get  comfortably  through  the  Canal  ?  I 
remember  being  tied  up  there  for  forty-eight  hours 
once." 

"  I  don't  think  she  says,  so  I  fancy  it  must  have 
been  all  right.  The  voyage  is  bound  to  do.  her  good. 
I've  asked  the  Simpsons  to  watch  particularly  for  any 
sign  of  malaria  later,  though.  One  can't  possibly 
know  what  she  may  have  imported  from  that  slum  in 
Bentinck  street." 

"And  what  was  it  like  after  Gibraltar?"  Alicia 
asked,  with  a  barely  perceptible  glance  at  the  envelope 
edges  showing  over  his  breast  pocket. 

"  I'll  look,"  and  he  sorted  one  out.  It  was  pink 
and  glossy,  with  a  diagonal  water-stripe.  Lindsay 
drew  out  the  single  sheet  it  contained,  and  she  could 
see  that  every  line  was  ruled  and  faintly  pencilled. 
"  Let  me  see,"  said  he.     "To  begin  at  the  beginning; 


214  HILDA. 

*  We  arrived  home  on  the  3rd  ' — you  see  it  was  the  3rd 
— '  making  very  slow  progress  the  last  day  on  account 
of  a  fog  in  the  Channel  '—ah,  a  fog  in  the  Channel  !— 

*  which  was  a  great  disappointment  to  some  on  board 
who  were  impatient  to  meet  their  loved  ones.  One 
lady  had  not  seen  her  family  of  five  for  seven  years. 
She  said  she  would  like  to  get  out  and  swim,  and  you 
could  not  wonder.    She  was  my  s — stable  companion.' " 

"  Quaint !  "  said  Alicia. 

*•  She  has  picked  up  the  expression  on  board.  *  So 
— so  she  told  me  this.'  Oh,  yes.  *  Now  that  it  is  all  ^ 
over  I  have  written  the  voyage  down  among  my  mer- 
cies in  spite  of  three  days'  sickness,  when  you  could 
keep  nothing  on ' — What  are  these  two  words,  Miss 
Livingstone  ?     I  can't  quite  make  them  out." 

"  *  Your  *  —  cambric  ?  —  stom  —  *  stomach '  — '  your 
stomach.'" 

"  Oh,  quite  so.  Thanks  ! — *  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay.' 
You  see,  it  was  rough  after  Gib.  *  Everybody  was  ' — 
Yes.  *  The  captain  read  Church  of  England  prayers 
on  Sunday  mornings,  in  which  I  had  no  objection  to 
join,  and  we  had  mangoes  every  day  for  a  week  after 
leaving  Ceylon.* " 

"  Miss  Filbert  was  so  fond  of  mangoes,"  Alicia  said. 

"  Was  she  ?  *  The  passengers  got  up  two  dances, 
and  quite  a  number  of  gentlemen  invited  me,  but  I 
declined  with  thanks,  though  I  would  not  say  it  is 
wrong  in  itself.'"  Lindsay  seemed  to  waver;  her 
glance  went  near  enough  to  him  to  show  her  that  his 
face  had  a  red  tinge  of  embarrassment.  He  looked  at 
the  letter  uncertainly,  on  the  point  of  folding  it  up. 

"You  see  she  hasn't  danced  for  so  long,"  Alicia 
put  in  quickly  ;  "  she  would  naturally  hesitate  about 


HILDA. 


215 


beginning  again  with  anybody  but  you.  I  shouldn't 
wonder,"  she  added  gently,  "  if  she  never  does,  with 
anybody  else." 

"  I  know  it's  an  idea  some  women  have,"  he  replied, 
gratefully  attributing  it  to  her  of  whom  they  spoke. 
"  I  think  it's  rather — nice." 

"  And  her  impressions  of  the  Simpsons — and  Plym- 
outh ?  " 

"She  goes  on  to  that."  He  re-consulted  the  letter. 
"  *  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Simpson  met  me  as  expected  and 
welcomed  me  very  affably.'  She  has  got  hold  of  a 
wrong  impression  there,  I  fancy ;  the  Simpsons 
couldn't  be  *  affable.'  *  They  seem  very  kind  and 
pleasant  for  such  stylish  people,  and  their  house  is 
lovely,  with  electric  light  in  the  parlour  and  hot  and 
cold  water  throughout.  They  seem  very  earnest  peo- 
ple and  have  family  prayers  regularly,  but  I  have  not 
yet  been  asked  to  lead.  Four  servants  come  in  to 
prayers.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Simpson  are  deeply  interested 
in  the  work  of  the  Army,  though  I  think  Plymouth,  as 
a  whole,  is  more  taken  up  with  the  C.  M.  S. ;  but  we 
cannot  have  all  things.'  Dear  me,  yes !  I  remember 
those  evangelical  teas  and  the  disappointment  that  I 
could  not  speak  more  definitely  about  the  work  among 
the  Sontalis." 

"  Fancy  her  having  caught  the  spirit  of  the  place 
already !  "  exclaimed  Alicia.  He  went  on  :  "  *  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Simpson  have  a  beautiful  garden  and  grow  most 
of  their  own  vegetables.  We  sit  in  it  a  great  deal  and 
I  think  of  all  that  has  passed.  I  hope  ever  that  it  has 
been  for  the  best  and  pray  for  you  always.  Oh,  that 
your  feet  may  be  set  in  the  right  path  and  that  we 
may  walk  hand  in  hand  upon  the  way  to  Zion !  * " 


2'6  HILDA. 

Lindsay  lowered  his  voice  and  read  the  last  sentences 
rapidly,  as  if  the  propulsion  of  the  first  part  of  the  let- 
ter sent  him  through  them.  Then  he  stopped  abruptly, 
and  Alicia  looked  up. 

"  That's  all,  only,"  he  added  with  an  awkward  smile, 
"  the  usual  formula." 

"  '  God  bless  you  '?  "  she  asked,  and  he  nodded. 

"  It  has  a  more  genuine  ring  than  most  formulas," 
she  observed. 

"  Yes,  hasn't  it  ?  May  I  have  another  cup  ?  "  He 
restored  the  pink  sheet  to  its  pink  envelope  and  both 
to  his  breast  pocket  while  she  poured  out  the  other 
cup,  but  Miss  Filbert  was  still  present  with  them. 
They  went  on  talking  about  her,  and  entirely  in  the 
tone  of  congratulation— the  suitability  of  the  Simp- 
sons, the  suitability  of  Plymouth,  the  probability  that 
she  would  entirely  recover,  in  its  balmy  atmosphere, 
her  divine  singing  voice.  Plymouth  certainly  was  in 
no  sense  a  tonic,  but  Miss  Filbert  didn't  need  a  tonic  ; 
she  was  too  much  inclined  to  be  strung  up  as  it  was. 
What  she  wanted  was  the  soothing,  quieting  influence 
of  just  Plymouth's  meetings  and  just  Plymouth's  teas. 
The  charms  that  so  sweetly  and  definitely  character- 
ised her  would  expand  there;  it  was  a  delightful 
flowery  environment  for  them,  and  she  couldn't  fail  to 
improve  in  health.  Devonshire's  visitors  got  tre- 
mendously well  fed,  with  fish  items  of  especial  excel- 
lence. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Nobody  could  have  been  more  impressed  with 
Hilda's  influence  upon  Mr.  Llewellyn  Stanhope's  com- 
mercial probity  than  Mr.  Llewellyn  Stanhope  himself. 
He  was  a  prey  to  all  noble  feelings  ;  they  ruled  his 
life  and  spoiled  his  bargains ;  and  gratitude,  when  it 
had  a  chance,  which  was  certainly  seldom  in  connec- 
tion with  leading  ladies,  dominated  him  entirely.  He 
sat  in  the  bar  of  the  Great  Eastern  Hotel  with  tears 
in  his  eyes,  talking  about  what  Miss  Howe  had  done 
for  him,  and  gave  unnecessary  backsheesh  to  coolies 
who  brought  him  small  bills— so  long,  that  is,  as  they 
were  the  small  bills  of  this  season.  When  they  had 
reference  to  the  liabilities  of  a  former  and  less  pros- 
perous year  he  waved  them  away  with  a  bitter  levity 
which  belonged  to  the  same  period.  His  view  of  his 
obligations  was  strictly  chronological,  and  in  taking  it 
he  counted,  like  the  poet,  only  happy  hours.  The 
bad  debt  and  the  bad  season  went  consistently  to- 
gether to  oblivion  ;  the  sun  of  to-day's  remarkable  re- 
ceipts could  not  be  expected  to  penetrate  backwards. 
He  had  only  one  fault  to  find  with  Miss  Howe— she 
had  no  artistic  conscience,  none  whatever,  and  he 
found  this  with  the  utmost  leniency,  basking  in  the 
consciousness  that  it  made  his  own  more  conspicuous. 
She  was  altogether  in  the  grand  style,  if  you  under- 
stood Mr.  Stanhope,  but  nothing  would  induce  her  to 


2i8  HILDA. 

do  herself  justice  before  Calcutta;  she  seemed  to  have 
taken  the  measure  of  the  place  and  to  be  as  indiffer- 
ent !    Try  to  ring  in  anything  worth  doing  and  she 
was  off  with  the  bit  between  her  teeth,  and  you  simply 
had  to  put  up  with  it.     The  second  lead  had  a  great 
deal  more  ambition,  and  a  very  good  little  woman  in 
her  way,  too,  but  of  course  not  half  the  talent.     He 
was  obliged  to  confess  that  Miss  Howe  wasn't  game 
for  risks,  especially  after  doing  her  Rosalind  the  night 
the  circus  opened  to  a  twenty-five  rupee  house.     It 
was  monstrous.     She  seemed  to  think  that   nothing 
mattered  so  much  as  that   everybody  should  be  paid 
on  the  first  of  the  month.     There  was  one  other  griev- 
ance, which  Llewellyn  mentioned  only  in  confidence 
with   a   lowered   voice.     That   was    Bradley.      Hilda 
wasn't  lifting  a  finger  to  keep  Bradley.     Result  was, 
Bradley  was  crooking  his  elbow  a  great  deal  too  often 
lately  and  going  off  every  way.     He,  Llewellyn,  had 
put  it  to  her  if  that  was  the  way  to  treat  a  man  the 
Daily  Telegraph  had   spoken  about  as  it  had  spoken 
about   Hamilton    Bradley.      Where  was   she — where 
was  he — going  to  find  another  ?     No,  he  didn't  say 
marry  Bradley ;  there    were  difficulties,  and  after  all 
that  might  be  the  very  way  to  lose  him.     But  a  wo- 
man had  an  influence,  and  that  influence  could  never 
be  more  fittingly   exercised  than  in  the  cause  of  dra- 
matic art,  based  on  Mr.  Stanhope's  combinations.     Mr. 
Stanhope  expressed  himself  more  vaguely,  but  it  came 
to  that. 

Perhaps  if  you  pursued  Llewellyn,  pushed  him,  as  it 
were,  along  the  track  of  what  he  had  to  put  up  with^ 
you  would  have  come  upon  the  further  fact  that  as  a 
woman  of   business  Miss  Howe  had  no  parallel  for 


HILDA. 


219 


procrastination.  Next  season  was  imminent  in  his 
arrangements,  as  Christmas  numbers  are  imminent  to 
publishers  at  midsummer,  and  here  she  was  shying  at 
a  contract  as  if  they  had  months  for  consideration.  It 
wasn't,  either,  as  if  she  complained  of  anything  in  the 
terms — that  would  be  easy  enough  fixed — but  she  said 
herself  that  it  was  a  bigger  salary  than  he,  Llewellyn, 
would  ever  be  able  to  pay  unless  she  went  round  with 
the  hat.  Nor  had  she  any  objection  to  the  tour — a 
fascinating  one — including  the  Pacific  Slope  and  Hono- 
lulu. It  stumped  him,  Llewellyn,  to  know  what  she 
did  object  to  and  why  she  couldn't  bark  it  out  at 
once,  seeing  she  must  understand  perfectly  well  it  was 
no  use  his  going  to  Bradley  without  first  settling  with 
her. 

Hilda,  alone  in  her  own  apartment — it  was  difficult 
to  keep  Llewellyn  Stanhope  away  from  even  that  door 
in  his  pursuit  of  her  signature— considered  the  vagary 
life  had  become  for  her,  it  was  so  whimsical,  and  the 
mystery  of  her  secret  which  was  so  solely  hers.  Alicia 
knew,  of  course ;  but  that  was  much  as  if  she  had 
written  it  down  on  a  sheet  of  perfect  notepaper  and 
locked  it  up  in  a  drawer.  Alicia  did  not  speculate 
about  it,  and  the  whole  soul  of  it  was  tangled  now  in 
a  speculation.  There  had  been  a  time  filled  with  the 
knowledge  and  the  joy  of  this  new  depth  in  her,  like  a 
buoyant  sea,  and  she  had  been  content  to  float  in  it, 
imagining  desirable  things.  Stanhope's  waiting  con- 
tract made  a  limit  to  the  time — a  limit  she  brought  up 
against  without  distress  or  shock,  but  with  a  kind  of 
recognising  thrill  in  contact  at  last  with  the  necessity 
for  action,  decision,  a  climax  of  high  heart-beats. 
She  saw  with  surprise  that  she  had  lived  with  her  pas- 


220  HILDA. 

sion  these  weeks  and  months  half  consciously  expect- 
ing that  a  crucial  moment  would  dissolve  it,  like  a  per- 
son aware  that  he  dreams  and  will  presently  awake. 
She  had  not  faced  till  now  any  exigency  of  her  case. 
But  the  crucial  moment  had  leapt  upon  her,  pointing 
out  the  subjection  of  her  life,  and  she,  undefended, 
sought  only  how  to  accomplish  her  bonds. 

Certainly  she  saw  no  solution  that  did  not  seem 
monstrous ;  yet  every  pulse  in  her  demanded  a  solu- 
tion ;  there  was  no  questioning  the  imperious  need. 
She  had  the  fullest,  clearest  view  of  the  situation,  and 
she  looked  at  it  without  flinching  and  without  compro- 
mise. Above  all,  she  had  true  vision  of  Stephen  Arnold, 
glorifying  nowhere,  extenuating  nothing.  It  was 
almost  cruel  to  be  the  victim  of  such  circumstance 
and  be  denied  the  soft  uses  of  illusion  ;  but  if  that 
note  of  sympathy  had  been  offered  to  Hilda  she 
would  doubtless  have  retorted  that  it  was  precisely 
because  she  saw  him  that  she  loved  him.  His  figure, 
in  its  poverty  and  austerity,  was  always  with  her  ;  she 
made  with  the  fabric  of  her  nature  a  kind  of  shrine  for 
it,  enclosing,  encompassing,  and  her  possession  of  him, 
by  her  knowledge,  was  deep  and  warm  and  protect- 
ing. I  think  the  very  fulness  of  it  brought  her  a  kind 
of  content  with  which,  but  for  Llewellyn  and  his  con- 
tract, she  would  have  been  willing  to  go  on  indefinitely. 
It  made  him  hers  in  a  primary  and  essential  way,  be- 
side which  any  mere  acknowledgment  or  vow  seemed 
chiefly  decorative,  like  the  capital  of  a  pillar  firmly 
rooted.  There  may  be  an  appearance  that  she  took  a 
good  deal  for  granted  ;  but  if  there  is,  I  fear  that  in  the 
baldness  of  this  history  it  has  not  been  evident  how 
much  and  how  variously  Arnold  depended  on  her,  in 


"'   / 


< 


HILDA. 


331 


how  many  places  her  colour  and  her  vitality  patched 
out  the  monkish  garment  of  his  soul — this  with  her 
enthusiasm  and  her  cognisance.  It  may  be  remem- 
bered, too,  that  there  was  in  the  very  tenderness  of  her 
contemplation  of  the  priest  in  her  path  an  imperious 
tinge  born  of  the  way  men  had  so  invariably  melted 
there.  Certainly  they  had  been  men  and  not  priests; 
but  the  little  flickering  doubt  that  sometimes  leaped 
from  this  source  through  the  glow  of  her  imagination 
she  quenched  very  easily  with  the  reflection  that  such 
a  superficies  was  after  all  a  sophistry,  and  that  only  its 
rudiments  were  facts.  She  proposed,  calmly  and  lov- 
ingly* to  deal  with  the  facts. 

She  told  herself  that  she  would  not  be  greedy  about 
the  conditions  under  which  she  should  prevail ;  but 
her  world  had  always,  always  shaped  itself  answering 
her  hand,  and  if  she  cast  her  eyes  upon  the  ground 
now,  and  left  the  future,  even  to-morrow,  undevisaged, 
it  was  because  she  would  not  find  any  concessions 
among  its  features  if  she  could  help  it.  It  was  a  trick 
she  played  upon  her  own  consciousness ;  she  would 
not  look,  but  she  could  see  without  looking.  She  saw 
that  which  explained  itself  to  be  best,  fittest,  most 
reasonable,  and  thus  she  sometimes  wandered  with 
Arnold  anticipatively,  on  afternoons  when  there  was 
no  matinee,  through  the  perfumed  orange  orchards  of 
Los  Angeles,  on  the  Pacific  slope. 

She  would  not  search  to-morrow  ;  but  she  took 
toward  it  one  of  those  steps  of  vague  intention,  at  the 
end  of  which  we  beckon  to  possibilities.  She  wrote 
to  Stephen  and  asked  him  to  come  to  see  her  then. 
She  had  not  spoken  to  him  since  the  night  of  the 
Viceroy's  party,  when  she  put  her  Bohemian  head  out 


222  HILDA. 

of  the  ticea-gharry  to  wish  him  good-night,  and  he 
walked  home  alone  under  the  stars,  trying  to  remember 
a  line  of  Horace,  a  chaste  one,  about  woman's  beauty. 
She  sent  the  note  by  post.  There  was  no  answer  but 
that  was  as  usual ;  there  never  was  an  answer  unless 
something  prevented  him  ;  he  always  came,  and  ten 
minutes  before  the  time.  Hilda  sat  under  the  blue 
umbrellas  when  the  hour  arrived,  devising  with  full 
heart-beats  what  she  would  say,  creating  fifty  different 
forms  of  what  he  would  say,  while  the  hands  slipped 
round  the  clock  past  the  moment  that  should  have 
brought  his  step  to  the  door.  Hilda  noted  it  and  com- 
pared her  watch.  A  bowl  of  roses  stood  on  a  little 
table  near  a  window  ;  she  got  up  and  went  to  it,  bend- 
ing over  and  rearranging  the  flowers.  The  light  fell 
on  her  and  on  the  roses ;  it  was  a  beautiful  attitude, 
and  when  at  a  footfall  she  looked  up  expectantly  it 
was  more  beautiful.  But  it  was  only  another  boarder 
— a  Mr.  Gonzalves,  with  a  highly-varnished  complex- 
ion, who  took  off  his  hat  elaborately  as  he  passed  the 
open  door.  Hilda  became  conscious  of  her  use  of  the 
roses  and  abandoned  them.  Presently  she  sat  down 
on  a  Bentwood  rocking-chair  and  swayed  to  and  fro, 
aware  of  an  ebbing  of  confidence.  Half  an  hour  later 
she  was  still  sitting  there.  Her  face  had  changed, 
something  had  faded  in  it ;  her  gaze  at  the  floor  was 
profoundly  speculative,  and  when  she  glanced  at  the 
empty  door  it  was  with  timidity.  Arnold  had  not 
come  and  did  not  come. 

The  evening  passed  without  explanation,  and  next 
morning  the  post  brought  no  letter.  It  was  simplest 
to  suppose  that  her  own  had  not  reached  him,  and 
Hilda  wrote  again.     The  second   letter  she  sent   by 


HILDA.  223 

hand,  with  a  separate  sheet  of  paper  addressed  for 
signature.  The  messenger  brought  back  the  sheet  of 
paper  with  strange  initials,  "J.  L.  for  S.  A.,"  and 
there  was  no  reply.  There  remained  the  possibility 
of  absence  from  Calcutta,  of  illness.  That  he  should 
have  gone  away  was  most  unlikely,  that  he  had  fallen 
ill  was  only  too  probable.  Hilda  looked  from  her 
bedroom  window  across  the  varying  expanse  of 
parapeted  flat  roofs  and  mosque  bubbles  that  lay 
between  her  and  College  street,  and  curbed  the  im- 
pulse in  her  feet  that  would  have  resulted  in  the 
curious  spectacle  of  Llewellyn  Stanhope's  leading  lady 
calling  in  person  at  a  monastic  gate  to  express  a  kind 
of  solicitude  against  which  precisely  it  was  barred. 
A  situation,  after  all,  could  be  too  pictorial,  looked  at 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Order,  a  consideration 
which  flashed  with  grateful  humour  across  htr 
anxiety.  Alicia  would  have  known ;  but  both  the 
Livingstones  had  gone  for  a  short  sea  change  to 
Ceylon  with  Duff  Lindsay  and  some  touring  people 
from  Surrey.  They  were  most  anxious,  Hilda  remem- 
bered, that  Arnold  should  accompany  them.  Could 
he  in  the  end  have  gone?  There  was,  of  course,  the 
accredited  fount  and  source  of  all  information,  the 
Brother  Superior;  but  with  what  propriety  could 
Hilda  Howe  apply  for  it?  Llewellyn  might  write  for 
her :  but  it  was  glaringly  impossible  that  the  situation 
should  lay  itself  so  far  open  to  Llewellyn.  Looking 
in  vain  for  resources  she  came  upon  an  expedient. 
She  found  a  sheet  of  cheap  note-paper,  and  made  it  a 
little  greasy.  On  it  she  wrote  with  red  ink  in  the 
cramped  hand  of  the  bazaar  Kerani :  * 

*  Hired  writer. 


224  HILDA. 

"  Sir :— Will  you  please  to  inform  to  me  if  Mr. 
Arnold  has  gone  mofussil  or  England  as  I  have  some 
small  business  with   him.     Yours  obedient   servant, 

"  WuN  Sing." 

"  It  can't  be  forgery,"  she  reflected,  "  since  there 
isn't  a  Wun  Sing,"  and  added  an  artistic  postscript, 
"  Boots  and  shoes  verry  much  cheap  for  cash."  She 
made  up  the  envelope  to  match  and  addressed  it,  with 
consistent  illiteracy,  to  the  head  of  the  mission.  The 
son  of  the  Chinese  basketmaker,  who  dwelt  almost 
next  door,  spoke  neither  English  nor  Hindustani, 
but  showed  an  easy  comprehension  of  her  promise  of 
backsheesh  when  he  Liould  return  with  an  answer. 
She  had  a  joyful  anticipation,  while  she  waited,  of 
the  terms  in  which  she  should  tell  Arnold  how  she 
passed,  disguised  as  a  Chinese  shoemaker,  before  the 
receptive  and  courteous  consciousness  of  his  spiritual 
senior ;  of  how  she  penetrated,  in  the  suggestion  of  a 
pig-tail  and  an  unpaid  bill,  within  the  last  portals  that 
might  be  expected  to  recei'  e  her  in  the  form  under 
which,  for  example,  certair  Mack  and  yellow  posters 
were  presenting  her  to  the  Calcutta  public  at  that 
moment.  She  saw  his  scruples  go  swiftly  down  be- 
fore her  laughter  and  the  argument  of  her  tender 
anxiety,  which  she  was  quite  prepared  to  learn  foolish 
and  unnecessary.  There  was  even  an  adventurous 
instant  in  which  she  leaped  at  actual  personation,  and 
she  looked  in  rapture  at  the  vivid  risk  of  the  thing 
before  she  abandoned  it  as  involving  too  much.  She 
sent  no  receipt-form  this  time — that  was  not  the 
practice  of  the  bazaar — and  when,  hours  after,  her 
messenger    returned    with  weariness  and    dejection 


HILDA.  225 

wr.Lten  upon  him  in  the  characters  of  a  perfunctory 
Chinese  smile,  she  could  only  gather  from  his  negative 
head  and  hands  that  no  answer  had  been  given  him, 
and  that  her  expedient  had  failed. 

Hilda  stared  at  her  dilemma.  Its  properties  were 
curiously  simple.  His  world  and  hers,  with  the  same 
orbit,  had  no  point  of  contact.  Once  swinging  round 
their  eastern  centre,  they  had  come  close  enough  for 
these  two,  leaning  very  far  out,  to  join  hands.  When 
they  loosed  it  seemed  they  lost. 

The  more  she  gazed  at  it  the  more  it  looked  a 
preposterous  thing  that  in  a  city  vibrant  with  human 
communication  by  all  the  methods  which  make  it  easy, 
it  should  be  possible  for  one  individual  thus  to  drop 
suddenly  and  completely  from  the  knowledge  of  an- 
other— a  mediaeval  thing.  Their  isolation  as  Euro- 
peans of  course  accounted  for  it ;  there  was  no  medium 
in  the  brown  population  that  hummed  in  the  city 
streets.  Hilda  could  not  even  bribe  a  servant  without 
knowing  how  to  speak  to  him.  She  ravaged  the 
newspapers ;  they  never  were  more  bare  of  reference 
to  consecrated  labours.  The  nearest  approach  to  one 
was  a  paragraph  chronicling  a  social  evening  given  by 
the  Wesleyans  in  Sudder  street,  with  an  exhibition  of 
the  cinematograph.  In  a  moment  of  defiance  and  de- 
termination she  sent  a  telegram  studiously  colourless. 
"  Unable  find  you  wish  communicate  please  inform. 
A.  Murphy."  He  had  never  forgotten  the  incongruity 
she  was  born  to  :  in  occasional  scrupulous  moments  he 
addressed  her  by  it ;  he  would  recognise  and  under- 
stand.    There  was  no  reply. 

The  enigma  pressed  upon  her  days,  she  lived  in  the 
heaviness  of  it,  waiting.     His  silence  added  itself  up, 


226  HILDA. 

brought  her  a  kind  of  shame  for  the  exertions  she  had 
made.  She  turned  with  obstinacy  from  the  further 
schemes  her  ingenuity  presented.  Out  of  the  sum  of 
her  unsuccessful  efforts  grew  a  reproach  of  Arnold ; 
every  one  of  them  increased  it.  His  behaviour  she 
could  forgive,  arbitrarily  putting  against  it  twenty  po- 
tential explanations,  but  not  the  futility  of  what  she 
had  done.  Her  resentment  of  that  undermined  all  the 
fairness  of  her  logic,  and  even  triumphed  over  the 
sword  of  her  suspense.  She  never  quite  gave  up  the 
struggle,  but  in  effect  she  passed  the  week  that  inter- 
vened pinioned  in  her  unreason — bands  that  vanished 
as  she  looked  at  them,  only  to  tie  her  thrice  in  another 
place. 

Life  became  a  permanent  interrogation-point.  Wait- 
ing under  it,  with  a  perpetual  upward  gaze,  perhaps 
she  grew  a  little  dizzy.  The  sun  of  March  had  been 
increasing,  and  the  air  that  Saturday  afternoon  had 
begun  to  melt  and  glow  and  hang  in  the  streets  with  a 
kind  of  inertia,  like  a  curtain  that  had  to  be  parted  to 
be  penetrated.  Hilda  came  into  the  house  and  faced 
the  stairs  with  an  inclination  to  leave  her  body  on  the 
ground  floor  and  mount  in  spirit  only.  When  she 
glanced  in  at  the  drawing-room  door  and  saw  Arnold 
sitting  under  the  blue  umbrellas,  a  little  paler,  a 
thought  more  serene  than  usual,  she  swept  into  the 
room  as  if  a  tide  carried  her,  and  sank  down  upon  a  foot- 
stool close  to  him,  as  if  it  had  dropped  her  there.  He 
had  risen  at  her  appearance.  He  was  all  himself  but 
rather  more  the  priest ;  his  face  of  greeting  had  exactly 
its  usual  asking  intelligence,  but  to  her  the  fact  that  he 
was  normal  was  lost  in  the  fact  that  he  was  near.  He 
held  out  his  hand,  but  she  only  sought  his  face  speech- 
less, hugging  her  knees. 


HILDA.  227 

"You  are  overcome  by  the  sun/'  he  said.  "Lie 
down  for  a  moment,"  and  again  he  offered  her  a  hand 
to  help  her  to  rise.  She  shook  her  head  but  took  his 
hand,  enclosing  it  in  both  of  hers  with  a  sort  of  happy 
deliberation,  and  drew  herself  up  by  it,  while  her  eyes, 
shining  like  dark  surfaces  of  some  glorious  conscious- 
ness within,  never  left  his  face.  So  she  stood  beside 
him  with  her  head  bowed,  still  dumb.  It  was  her  su- 
preme moment ;  life  never  again  brought  her  anything 
like  it.  It  was  not  that  she  confessed  so  much  as  that 
she  asserted,  she  made  a  glowing  thing  plain,  cried  out 
to  him,  still  standing  silent,  the  deep-lying  meaning  of 
the  tangle  of  their  lives.  She  was  shakci.  by  a  pure 
delight,  as  if  she  unclosed  her  hand  to  show  him  a 
strange  jewel  in  her  palm,  hers  and  his  for  the  looking. 
The  intensity  of  her  consciousness  swept  round  him  and 
enclosed  him,  she  knew  this  profoundly,  and  had  no 
thought  of  the  insulation  he  had  in  his  robe.  The  in- 
stant passed  ;  he  stood  outside  it  definitely  enough,  yet 
some  vibration  in  it  touched  him,  for  there  was  sur- 
prise in  his  involuntary  backward  step. 

"You  must  have  thought  me  curiously  rude,"  he 
said,  as  if  he  felt  about  for  an  explanation,  "but 
your  letters  were  only  given  to  me  an  hour  ago.  We 
have  all  been  in  retreat,  you  know." 

''In  retreat/''  Hilda  exclaimed.  "Ah,  yes.  How 
foolish  I  have  been!  In  retreat,"  she  repeated, 
softly,  flicking  a  trace  of  dust  from  his  sleeve.  "Of 
course." 

"  It  was  held  in  St.  Paul's  College,"  Stephen  went 
on,  "by  Father  Neede.  Shall  we  sit  down?  And  of 
course  at  such  times  no  communications  reach  us,  no 
letters  or  papers." 


228  HILDA. 

"  No  letters  or  papers,"  Hilda  said,  looking  at  him 
softly,  as  it  were,  through  the  film  of  the  words. 
They  sat  down,  he  on  the  sofa,  she  on  a  chair  very 
near  it.  There  was  another  placed  at  a  more  usual 
distance,  but  she  seemed  incapable  of  taking  the  step 
or  two  toward  it,  away  from  him.  Stephen  gave  him- 
self to  the  grateful  sense  of  her  proximity.  He  had 
come  to  sun  himself  again  in  the  warmth  of  her  fel- 
lowship; he  was  stirred  by  her  emphasis  of  their 
separation  and  reunion.  "  And  what,  please,"  he 
asked,  "  have  you  been  doing  ?  Account  to  me  for 
the  time?" 

"  While  you  have  been  praying  and  fasting  ?  Won- 
dering what  you  were  at,  and  waiting  for  you  to  finish. 
Waiting,"  she  said,  and  clasped  her  knees  with  her 
intent  look  again,  swaying  a  little  to  and  fro  in  her 
content,  as  if  that  which  she  waited  for  had  already 
come,  full  and  very  desirable. 

"  Have  you  been  reading ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  have  been  reading  nothing  ?  You  shall 
never  go  into  retreat  again,"  she  went  on,  with  a 
sudden  change  of  expression.  "  It  is  well  enough  for 
you,  but  I  am  not  good  at  fasting.  And  I  have  an 
indulgence,"  she  added,  unaware  of  her  soft,  bright 
audacity,  "  that  will  cover  both  our  cases." 

His  face  uttered  aloud  his  reflection  that  she  was 
extravagant,  that  it  was  a  pity,  but  that  what  was  not 
due  to  her  profession  might  be  ascribed  to  the  simple, 
clear  impulse  of  her  temperament — that  temperament 
which  he  had  found  to  be  a  well  of  rare  sincerity. 

"  I  am  not  to  go  any  more  into  retreat  ? "  he  said, 
in  grave  interrogation ;  but  the  hint  of  rebuke  in  his 
voice  was  not  in  his  heart,  and  she  knew  it. 


HILDA. 


229 


"  No  !  "  she  cried.  "You  shall  not  be  hidden  away 
like  that.  You  shall  not  go  alive  into  the  tomb  and 
leave  me  at  the  door.     Because  I  cannot  bear  it." 

She  leaned  toward  him,  and  her  hand  fell  lightly  on 
his   knee.     It  was   a   claiming   touch,  and  there  was 
something  in  the  unfolded  sweetness  of  her  face  that 
was  not  ambiguous.     Arnold  received  the  intelligence. 
It  came  in  a  vague,  grey,  monitory  form,  a  cloud,  a  por- 
tent, a  chill  menace  ;  but  it  came,  and  he  paled  under 
it.     He  seemed  to  lean  upon  his  own  hands,  pressed 
one  on  each  side  of  him  to  the  seat  of  the  sofa  for 
support,  and  he  looked  in  fixed  silence  at  the  shapely 
white  thing  on  his  knee.     His  face  seemed  to  wither, 
new  lines  came  upon  it  as  the  impression  grew  in  him  ; 
and  the  glamour  faded  out  of  hers  as  she  was  sharply 
reminded,  looking  at  him,  that  he  had  not  traversed 
the  waste  with  her,  that  she  had  kept  her  vigils  alone. 
Yet  it  was  all  said  and  done,  and  there  was  no  repent- 
ance in  her.     She  only  gathered  herself  together,  and 
fell  back,  as  it  were,  upon  her  magnificent  position. 
As  she  drew  her  hand  away,  he  dropped  his  face  into 
the  cover  of  his  own,  leaning  his  elbow  on  his  knee, 
and  there  was  a   pulsing   silence.     The   instant  pro- 
longed itself. 

"Are  you  praying?"  Hilda  asked,  with  much  gen- 
tleness,  almost  a  child-like  note  ;  and  he  shook  his 
head.  There  was  another  instant's  pause,  and  she 
spoke  again. 

"Are  you  so  grieved,  then,"  she  said,  "that  this 
has  come  upon  us?" 

Again  he  held  his  eyes  away  from  her,  clasping  his 
hands  and  looking  at  the  thing  nearest  to  him,  while 
at  last  blood  from  the  heart  of  the  natural  man  in 


230  HILDA. 


him  came  up  and  stained  his  face,  his  forehead  under 
the  thin  ruffling  of  colourless  hair,  his  neck  above  the 
white  band  that  was  his  badge  of  difference  from 
other  men. 

"I_fear— I  hardly  understand,"  he  said.  The 
words  fell  cramped  and  singly,  and  his  lip  twitched. 
"  It-— it  is  impossible  to  think " 

His  eyes  went  in  her  direction,  but  lacked  courage 
to  go  all  the  way.  He  looked  as  if  he  dared  not  lift 
his  head. 

One  would  not  say  that  Hilda  hesitated,  for  there 
was  no  failing  in  the  wings  of  her  high  confidence, 
but  she  looked  at  him  in  a  brave  silence.  Her  crlance 
had  tender  investigation  in  it ;  she  stood  on  the  brink 
of  her  words  just  long  enough  to  ask  whether  they 
would  hurt  him.  Seeing  that  they  would,  she  never- 
theless  plunged,  but  with  infinite  compassion  and 
consideration.  She  spoke  like  an  agent  of  Fate,  con- 
scious  and  grieved. 

"  /understand,"  she  said  simply.  " Sometimes,  you 
know,  we  are  quicker.  And  you  in  your  cell,  how 
should  you  find  out  ?  That  is  why  I  must  tell  you,  be- 
cause, though  I  am  a  woman,  you  are  a  priest.  Partly 
for  that  reason  I  may  speak,  partly  because  I  love 
you,  Stephen  Arnold,  better  and  more  ardently 
than  you  can  ever  love  me,  or  anybody,  I  think,  ex- 
cept, perhaps,  your  God.  And  I  am  tired  of  keeping 
silence." 

She  was  so  direct,  so  unimpassioned,  that  half  his 
distress  turned  to  astonishment,  and  he  faced  her  as  if 
a  calm  and  reasoned  hand  had  been  laid  upon  the  con- 
fusion  in  him.  Meeting  his  gaze,  she  unbarred  a 
flood-gate  of  happy  tenderness  in  her  eyes. 


HILDA. 


231 


"  Love !  •'  he  gasped  in  it,  J*  I  have  nothing  to  do 
with  that." 

"  Oh,"  she  said,  "  you  have  everything  to  do  with  it." 
Something  leaped   in  him  without  asking  his  per- 
mission, assuring  him  that  he  was  a  man,  until  then  a 
placid   theory   with    an    unconscious    basis.     It    was 
therefore  a  blow  to  his  saintship,  or  it   would  have 
been,  but  he  warded  if  off,  flushed  and  trembling.     It 
was  as  if  he  had  been  ambuscaded.     He  had  to  hold 
himself  from  the  ignominy  of  flight ;  he  rose  to  cut 
his  way  out,  making  an  effort  to  strike  with  precision. 
"Some  perversity  has  seized  you,"  he   said.     The 
muscles  about    his   mouth    quivered,   giving  him   a 
curious  aspect.     "  You  mean  nothing  of  what  you  say." 
"  Do  you  believe  that?" 

"  I — I  cannot  think   anything  else.     It  is  the  only 
way  I  can — I  can — make  excuse." 

"Ah,  don't  excuse  me!"    she  murmured,  with  an 
astonishing  little  gay  petulance. 

"  You   cannot   have  thought  "—in  spite  of  himself 
he  made  a  step  toward  the  door. 

"Oh,  I  did  think— I  do  think.     And  you  must  not 
go."     She,  too,  stood  up  and  stayed  him.     "  Let  us  at 
least  see  clearly."     There  was  a   persuading  note  in 
her  voice ;  one  would  have  thought,  indeed,  that  she 
was   dealing  with  a  patient,  or  a  child.     "  Tell  me," 
she  clasped  her  hands  behind  her  back  and  looked  at 
him  in  marvellous,  simple  candour,  "do  I  really  an- 
nounce this  to  you  ?     Was  there  not  in  yourself  any- 
where—deep down— any  knowledge  of  it  ?  ** 
"  I  did  not  guess— I  did  not  dream  !  " 
"  And— now  ?  "  she  asked. 
A  heavenly  current   drifted   from  her,  the  words 


232  HILDA. 

rose  and  fell  on  it  with  the  most  dazing  suggestion  in 
their  soft  hesitancy.  It  must  have  been  by  an  in- 
stinct of  her  art  that  her  hand  went  up  to  the  cross 
on  Arnold's  breast  and  closed  over  it,  so  that  he 
should  see  only  her.  The  familiar  vision  of  her  stood 
close,  looking  things  intolerably  new  and  different. 
Again  came  out  of  it  that  sudden  liberty,  that  unpre- 
meditated rush  and  shock  in  him.  He  paled  with 
indignation,  with  the  startled  resentment  of  a  woman 
wooed  and  hostile.  His  face  at  last  expressed  some- 
thing definite — it  was  anger.  He  stepped  back  and 
caught  at  his  hat.  **  I  am  sorry  "  he  said,  "  I  am 
sorry.  I  thought  you  infinitely  above  and  beyond  all 
that." 

Hilda  smiled  and  turned  away.  If  he  choose,  it  was 
his  opportunity  to  go,  but  he  stood  regarding  her, 
twirling  his  hat.  She  sat  down,  clasping  her  knees, 
and  looked  at  the  floor.  There  was  a  square  of  sun- 
light on  the  carpet,  and  motes  were  rising  in  it. 

"  Ah  well,  so  did  I,"  she  said  meditatively,  without 
raising  her  eyes.  Then  she  leaned  back  in  the  chair 
and  looked  at  him,  in  her  level  simple  way. 

"  It  was  a  foolish  theory,"  she  said,  "  and — now — I 
can't  understand  it  at  all.  I  am  amazed  to  find  that 
it  even  holds  good  with  you." 

It  was  so  much  in  the  tone  of  their  usual  dis- 
cussions that  Arnold  was  conscious  of  a  lively  relief. 
The  instinct  of  flight  died  down  in  him,  he  looked  at 
her  with  something  like  inquiry. 

"  It  will  always  be  to  me  curious,"  she  went  on, 
"  that  you  could  have  thought  your  part  in  me  so 
limited,  so  poor.  That  is  enough  to  say.  I  find  it 
hard  to  understand,  anybody  would,  that  you  could 


HILDA. 


233 


take  so  much  pleasure  in  me  and  not — so  much  more." 
She  opened  her  lips  again,  but  kept  back  the  words. 
"  Yes,"  she  added,  '*  that  is  enough  to  say." 

But  for  her  colourless  face  and  the  tenseness 
about  her  lips  it  might  have  been  thought  that  she 
definitely  abandoned  what  she  had  learned  she  could 
not  have.  There  was  a  note  of  acquiescence  and  re- 
gret in  her  voice,  of  calm  reason  above  all ;  and  this 
sense  reached  him,  induced  him  to  listen,  as  he  gen- 
erally listened,  for  anything  she  might  find  that  would 
explain  the  situation.  His  fingers  went  from  habit, 
as  a  man  might  play  with  his  watch-chain,  to  the  sym- 
bol of  his  faith  ;  her  eyes  followed  them,  and  rested 
mutely  on  the  cross.  There  was  a  profundity  of  feel- 
ing in  them,  wistful,  acknowledging,  deeply  specula- 
tive. **  You  could  not  forget  that  ? "  she  said,  and 
shook  her  head  as  if  she  answered  herself.  He  looked 
into  her  upturned  face  and  saw  that  her  eyes  were 
swimming, 

"  Never !  "  he  said,  "  Never,"  but  he  walked  to  the 
nearest  chair  and  sat  down.  He  seemed  suddenly 
aware  that  he  need  not  go  away,  and  his  head,  as  it 
rose  in  the  twilight  against  the  window,  was  grave 
and  calm.  Without  a  word  a  great  tenderness  filled 
the  space  betvveen  them  ;  an  interpreting  compassion 
went  to  and  (ro.  Suddenly  a  new  light  dawned  in 
Hilda's  eyes;  she  leaned  forward  and  met  his  in  an 
absorption  which  caught  them  out  of  themselves  into 
some  space  where  souls  wander,  and  perhaps  embrace. 
The  moment  died  away,  neither  of  them  could  have 
measured  it,  and  when  it  had  finally  ebbed — they  were 
conscious  of  every  subsiding  throb — a  silence  came  in- 
stead, like  a  margin  for  the  beauty  of  it.     After  a 


234 


HILDA. 


time  the  woman  spoke.     "  Once  before,"  she  besan 
but  he  put  up  his  hand  and  she  stopped.     Then,  aH 
she  would  no  longer  be  restrained,  "That   is  all   I 
want,"  she  whispered.     "That  is  enough  " 

For  a  time  they  said  very  little,  looking  back  upon 
the.r  d.v.ne  moment ;  the  shadows  gathered  in^he 
corners  of  the  room  and  made  quiet  conversat  on 
wh,ch  was  almost  audible  in  the  pauses.  Then  H  da 
began   to  speak   steadily,  calmly.     You,  too,  wol 

Arnold  Th'"  '"  '°"^  '"  ""^^  ^"^  '°""^  »°  -y  s 
Arnold  did ;  you,  too,  would  have  drawn   faith  and 

courage  from  her  face.  One  would  not  be  irreverent, 
but  f  this  woman  were  convicted  of  the  unforgivable 
t^pard^  ''''''"'  "  ^"^  °^'^'"  iustificationUt 

"  Then  I  may  stay .'  "  she  said  at  the  end. 

"  I  am  satisfied— if  a  way  can  be  found." 

"  I  will  find  a  way,"  she  replied 

After  which  he  went  back  through  the  city  streets 
to  his  disciples  in  new  humility  and  profounder  joy, 
knowing  that  virtue  had  gone  out  of  him.     She  in  h« 
room  where  she  lodged  also  considered  the  miracle 
twice  wonderful  in  that  it  asked  no  faith  of  her 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

It  is  difficult  to  be  precise  about  such  a  thing,  but  I 
should  think  that  Hilda  gave  herself  to  the  marvellous 
aspect  of  what  had  come  and  gone  between  them  for 
several  hours  after  Arnold  left  her.     It  was  not  for 
some  time,  at  all  events,  that  she  arrived  at  the  con- 
sideration— the  process  was  naturally  downward— that 
the  soul  of  the  marvel  lay  in  the  exact  moment  of  its 
happening.     Nothing  could  have  been  more  heaven- 
sent than  her  precious  perception,  exactly  then,  that 
before  the  shining  gift  of  Arnold's  spiritual  sympathy, 
all  her  desire  for  a  lesser  thing  from  him  must  creep 
away  abashed  for  ever.     Even  when  the  lesser  thing, 
by   infinitely   gradual   expansion,  again    became   th^e 
greater,  it  rjmaiii-d  permanently  leavened  and  lifted 
in  her  by  the  strange  and  lovely  incident  that  had 
taken,  for  the  moment,  such  command  of  her  and  of 
him.     She  would  not  question  it  or  reason  about  it, 
perhaps  with  an  instinct  to  avert  its  destruction ;  she 
simply  drew   it  deeply  into  her    content.      Only  its 
sweet    deception  did    not  stay  with  her,  and  she  let 
that  go   with   open  hands.     She  wanted,  more  than 
ever,  the  whole  of  Stephen  Arnold,  all  that  was  so 
openly  the  Mission's  and  all  that  was  so  evidently 
God's.     It  will  be  seen   that  she  felt  in  no  way  com- 
pelled  to  advise  him  of  this,  her  backsliding.     I  doubt 
whether  such  a  perversion  of  her  magnificent  course 


i; 

n 


236  HILDA. 

of  action  ever  occurred  to  her.  It  was  magnificent, 
for  it  entailed  a  high  disregarding  stroke ;  it  implied  a 
sublime  confidence  of  what  the  end  would  be,  a  ca- 
pacity to  wait  and  endure.  She  smiled  buoyantly,  in 
the  intervals  of  arranging  it,  at  the  idea  that  Stephen 
Arnold  stood  beyond  her  ultimate  possession. 

There  were  difficulties,  but  the  moment  was  favour- 
able to  her,  more  favourable  than  it  would  have  been 
the  year  before,  or  any  year  but  this.  Before  ten  days 
had  passed  she  was  able  to  write  to  Arnold  describing 
her  plan,  and  she  was  put  to  it  to  keep  the  glow  of 
success  out  of  her  letter.  She  kept  it  out,  that,  and 
everything  but  a  calm  and  humble  statement — any 
Clarke  Brother  might  have  dictated  it — of  what  she 
proposed  to  do.  Perhaps  the  intention  was  less  ob- 
vious than  the  desire  that  he  should  approve  it. 

The  messenger  waited  long  by  the  entrance  to  the 
Mission  House  for  an  answer,  exchanging,  sitting  on 
his  feet,  the  profane  talk  of  the  bazaar  with  the  gate- 
keeper of  the  Christians.  Stephen  was  in  chapel. 
There  was  no  service ;  he  had  half  an  hour  to  rest  in 
and  he  rested  there.  He  was  speculating,  in  the 
grateful  dimness,  about  the  dogma — he  had  never 
quite  accepted  it,  though  Colquhoun  had — of  the  in- 
tercessory power  of  the  souls  of  saints.  A  converted 
Brahmin,  an  old  man,  had  died  the  day  before. 
Arnold  luxuriated  in  the  humility  of  thinking  that  he 
would  be  glad  of  any  good  word  dear  old  Nourcndra 
Lai  could  say  for  him.  The  chapel  was  deliciously  re- 
fined. The  scent  of  fresh-cut  flowers  floated  upon  the 
continual  presence  of  the  incense ;  a  lily  outlined  its 
head  against  the  tall  carved  altar-piece  the  Brothers 
had  brought  from  Damascus.     The  seven  brass  lamps 


HILDA. 


237 


that  hung  from  the  rafters  above  the  altar  rails  were 
also  Damascene,  carved  and  pierced  so  that  the  light  in 
them  was  a  still  thing  like  a  prayer;  and  the  place 
breathed  vague  meanings  which  did  not  ask  under- 
standing. It  was  a  refuge  from  the  riot  and  squalor 
of  the  vvhitewashed  streets  with  a  double  value  and  a 
treble  charm,  I.  H.  S.  among  plaster  gods,  a  sanctuary 
in  the  bazaar.  Stephen  sat  in  it  motionless,  with  his 
lean  limbs  crossed  in  front  of  him,  until  the  half  hour 
was  up  ;  then  he  bent  his  knee  before  the  altar  and 
went  out  to  meet  a  servant  at  the  door  with  Hilda's 
letter.  The  chapel  opened  upon  an  upper  verandah  ; 
he  crossed  it  to  get  a  better  light  and  stood  to  read 
with  his  back  half  turned  upon  the  comers  and  goers. 

It  was  her  first  communication  since  they  parted,  and 
in  spite  of  its  colourlessness,  it  seemed  to  lay  strong, 
eager  hands  upon  him,  turning  his  shoulder  that  way, 
upon  the  world,  bending  his  head  over  the  page.  He 
had  not  dwelt  much  upon  their  strange  experience  in 
the  days  that  followed.  It  had  retreated  for  him  be- 
hind the  veil  of  tender  mystery  with  which  he  shrouded, 
even  from  his  own  eyes,  the  things  that  lay  between  his 
soul  and  God.  The  space  from  that  day  to  this  had 
been  more  than  usually  full  of  ministry  ;  its  pure  uses 
had  fallen  like  snow,  blotting  and  deadening  the  sud- 
den wonder  that  blossomed  then.  Latterly  he  had 
hardly  thought  of  it. 

So  far  was  he  removed,  so  deeply  drawn  again 
within  his  familiar  activities,  that  he  regarded  Hilda's 
letter  for  an  instant  with  a  lip  of  censure,  as  if,  for 
some  reason,  it  should  not  have  been  admitted.  It 
was,  in  a  manner,  her  physical  presence,  the  words 
expanded  into  her,  through  it  she  walked  back  into 


!'! 


238  HILDA. 

his  life,  with  an  interrogation.  Standing  there  by  the 
pillar  he  became  gradually  aware  of  the  weight  of  the 
interrogation. 

f\  A  passing  Brother  cast  at  him  the  sweet  smile  of  the 

cloister.     Arnold  stopped  him  and  transferred  an  im- 
11'  mediate  duty,  which  the  other  accepted  with  a  slightly 

I  exaggerated  happiness.     They  might  have  been  girls 

j||i|,  together,  with  their  apologies  and  protestations.    The 

'  other  Brother  went  on  in  a  little  glow  of  pleasure,  Ar- 

j  nold  turned  back  into  the  chapel,  carrying,  it  seemed 

|l|||i  to  him,  a  woman's  life  in  his  hand. 

He  took  his  seat  an  '  'olded  his  arms  almost  eagerly  ; 
llill  there  was  a  light  of  concentration  in  his  eye  and  a  line 

of  compression  about  his  lips  which  had  not  marked 
I  his  meditation  upon   Nourendra  Lai.     The  vigour  in 

his  face  suggested  that  he  found  a  kind  of  athletic 
luxury  in  what  he  had  to  think  about.  Brother  Col- 
quhoun,  with  his  flat  hat  clasped  before  his  breast, 
passed  down  the  aisle.  Stephen  looked  up  with  a 
trace  of  impatience.  Presently  he  rose  hurriedly,  as  if 
he  remembered  something,  and  went  and  knelt  before 
r,  one  of  several  paintings  that  hung  upon  the  chapel 

II :  walls.     They  were  old  copies  of  great  works,  discol- 

oured and  damaged.  They  had  sailed  round  the  Cape 
to  India  when  the  century  was  young,  and  a  lady 
friend  of  the  Mission  had  bought  them  at  the  sale  of  the 
effects  of  a  ruined  Begum.  Arnold  was  one  of  those 
who  could  separate  them  from  their  incongruous  his- 
tory and  consecrate  them  over  again.  He  often  found 
them  helpful  when  he  sought  to  lift  his  spirit,  and  in 
any  special  matter  a  special  comfort.  He  bent  for  ten 
minutes  before  a  Crucifixion,  and  then  hastened  back 
to  his  place.     Only  one  reflection  corrected  the  vigour- 


II  li 

1 1'  1 


I'r 


HILDA. 


339 


ous  satisfaction  with  which  he  thought  out  Hilda's 
proposition.  That  disturbed  him  in  the  middle  of  it, 
and  took  the  somewhat  irrelevant  form  of  a  specula- 
tion as  to  whether  the  events  of  their  last  meeting 
should  have  had  any  place  in  his  Thursday  confession. 
He  was  able  to  find  almost  at  once  a  conscientious 
negative  for  it,  and  it  did  not  recur  again. 

He  got  up  reluctantly  when  the-Mission  bell  sounded, 
and  indeed  he  had  come  to  the  end  of  a  very  absorb- 
ing interest.  His  decision  was  final  against  Hilda's 
scheme.  His  worn  experience  cried  out  at  the  sacrifice 
in  it  without  the  illumination — which  it  would  cer- 
tainly lack — of  religious  faith.  She  confessed  to  the 
lack,  and  that  was  all  she  had  to  say  about  her  motive, 
which,  of  course,  placed  him  at  an  immense  disadvan- 
tage in  considering  it.  But  the  question  then  de- 
scended to  another  plane,  became  merely  a  doubt  as  to 
the  most  useful  employment  of  energy,  and  that  doubt 
nobody  could  entertain  long,  nobody  of  reasonable 
breadth  of  view,  who  had  ever  seen  her  expressing  the 
ideals  of  the  stage.  Arnold  did  his  best  to  ward  off  all 
consideration  which  he  could  suspect  of  a  personal 
origin,  but  his  inveterate  self-sacrifice  slipped  in  and 
counted,  naturally  enough,  under  another  guise, 
counted  against  her  staying. 

He  went  to  his  room  and  wrote  to  Hilda  at  once, 
the  kindest,  simplest  of  letters,  but  conveying  a  defi- 
nitely negative  note.  He  would  have  been  perhaps 
more  guarded,  but  it  was  so  plainly  his  last  word  to 
her ;  Llewellyn  Stanhope  was  proclaiming  the  depar- 
ture of  his  people  in  ten  days'  time  upon  every  blank 
wall.  So  he  gave  himself  a  little  latitude,  he  let  in  an 
undercurrent  of  gentle  reminiscence,  of  serious  assur- 


. 


240  HILDA. 

ance  as  to  the  difference  she  had  made.  And  when  he 
had  finally  bade  her  begone  to  the  light  and  fulness  of 
her  own  life  and  fastened  up  his  letter,  he  deliberately 
lifted  it  to  his  lips,  and  placed  a  trembling,  awkward 
kiss  upon  it,  like  the  kiss  of  an  old  man,  perfunctory, 
yet  bearing  a  tende**  intention. 

The  Livingstones  and  Duff  Lindsay  had  come  back, 
the  people  from  Surrey  having  been  sped  upon  their 
way  to  the  Far  East.  Stephen  remembered  with 
more  than  his  usual  relish  an  engagement  to  dine  that 
evening  in  Middleton  street.  He  involuntarily  glanced 
at  his  watch.  It  was  half-past  one.  The  afternoon 
looked  arid,  stretching  between.  Consulting  his 
tablets,  he  found  that  he  had  nothing  that  was  really 
of  any  consequence  to  do.  There  were  items,  but 
they  were  unimportant,  transferable.  He  had  dis- 
missed Hilda  Howe,  but  a  glow  from  the  world  she 
helped  to  illumine  showed  seductively  at  the  end  of 
his  day.  He  made  an  errand  involving  a  long  walk, 
and  came  back  at  an  hour  which  left  nothing  but 
evensong  between  him  and  eight  o'clock. 

He  was  suddenly  aware,  as  he  talked  to  her  later,  of 
a  keener  edge  to  his  appreciation  of  the  charm  of 
Alicia  Livingstone.  Her  voyage,  he  assured  her,  had 
done  her  all  the  good  in  the  world.  Her  delicate 
bloom  had  certainly  been  enhanced  by  it,  and  the 
graceful  spring  of  her  neck  and  her  waist  seemed  to 
lljl  have  its  counterpart  in  a  freshened  poise  of  the  agree- 

j!  able  things  she  found  to  say.     It  was  delightful  the 

way  she  declared  herself  quite  a  different  being  and 
the  pleasure  with  which  she  moved,  dragging  fascinat- 
ing skirts  behind  her,  about  the  room.  She  made 
more  of  an  impression  upon  him  on  the  aesthetic  side 


HILDA. 


241 


than  she  had  ever  done  before ;  she  seemed  more 
highly  vitalised,  her  fineness  had  greater  relief  and 
her  charm  more  freedom.  Lindsay  was  there,  and 
Arnold  glanced  from  one  to  the  other  of  them,  first  with 
a  start,  then  with  a  smile,  at  the  recollection  of  Hilda's 
conception  of  their  relations.  If  this  were  a  type  and 
instance  of  hopeless  love  he  had  certainly  misread  all 
the  songs  and  sayings.  He  kept  the  idea  in  his  mind 
and  went  on  regarding  her  in  the  light  of  it  with  a 
pondering  smile,  turning  it  over  and  finding  a  lively 
pleasure  in  his  curious  acumen  in  such  an  unwonted 
direction.  It  was  a  very  flower  of  emotional  naivetdy 
though  a  moment  later  he  cast  it  from  him  as  a  weed, 
grown  in  idleness ;  and  indeed  it  might  have  abashed 
him  to  say  what  concern  it  had  in  the  mind  of  the 
Order  of  St.  Barnabas.  It  was  gratifying,  neverthe- 
less, to  have  his  observation  confirmed  by  the  way  in 
which  Alicia  leaned  across  him  toward  Lindsay  with 
occasional  references  to  Laura  Filbert,  apparently  full 
of  light-heartedness,  references  which  Duff  received  in 
the  square-shouldered,  matter-of-course  fashion  of  his 
countrymen  approaching  their  nuptials  in  any  quarter 
of  the  globe.  It  was  gratifying,  and  yet  it  enhanced 
in  Stephen  this  evening  the  indrawing  of  his  under- 
lip,  a  plaintive  twist  of  expression  which  spoke  upon 
the  faces  of  quite  half  the  Order  of  patience  under 
privation. 

The  atmosphere  was  one  of  congratulation ;  the 
week's  Gazette  had  transformed  Surgeon-Major  Liv- 
ingstone into  Surgeon-LicLitcnant-Colonel.  The 
officer  thus  promoted,  in  a  particularly  lustrous  shirt 
bosom — he  had  them  laundried  in  England  and  sent 
out  with  the  mails — made  a  serious  social  effort  to 


ill; 


!■: 


242  HILDA. 

correspond,  and  succeeded  in  producing  more  than 
one  story  of  the  Principal  Medical  Officer  with  her 
Majesty's  forces  in  India  which  none  of  them  heard 
before.  They  were  all  delighted  at  Herbert's  step, 
he  was  just  the  kind  of  person  to  get  a  step,  and  to 
get  it  rather  early  ;  a  sense  of  the  propriety  of  it 
mingled  with  the  general  gratification.  There  was  a 
feeling  of  ease  among  them,  too,  of  the  indefeasibly 
won,  which  the  event  is  apt  to  bring  even  when  the 
surgeon-lieutenant-colonelcy  is  most  strikingly  de- 
served. With  no  strain  imaginable  one  could  see  the 
relaxation. 

"  We  can't  do  much  in  celebration,"  Lindsay  was 
saying,  "  out  I've  got  a  box  at  the  theatre,  if  you'll 
come.  Our  people  had  some  pomfret  and  oysters 
over  on  ice  from  Bombay  this  morning,  ^nd  I've  sent 
my  share  to  Bonsard  to  see  what  he  can  do  with  it  for 
supper.  Jack  Cummins  and  Lady  Dolly  are  coming. 
By  the  way,  what  do  you  think  the  totalizator  paid 
Lady  Dolly  on  Saturday — six  thousand!" 

"Rippin*,"  Herbert  agreed.  "We'll  all  come — at 
least — I  don't  know.     What  do  you  say,  Arnold  ?" 

"Of  course  Stephen  will  come,"  Alicia  urged. 
"Why  not?"  It  was  putting  him  and  his  gown  at 
once  beyond  the  operation  of  vulgar  prejudice,  intimat- 
ing that  they  quite  knew  him  for  what  he  was. 

"  What's  the  piece  ?  "  Herbert  inquired. 

"  Oh,  the  piece  isn't  up  to  much,  I'm  afraid,  only 
that  Hilda  Howe  is  worth  seeing  in  almost  anything." 
lii  "  Thanks,"  Stephen   put  in,  "  but   I  think,  thanks 

'  very  much,  I  would  rather  not." 

"  I  remember,"  Alicia  said,  "you  were  with  us  the 
night  she  played  in  The  Reproach  of  Galilee.     I  don't 


HILDA.  243 

wonder    that  you  do   not  wish   to  disturb  that   im- 
pression." 

Stephen  fixed  his  eyes  upon  a  small  pyramid  of 
crystallized  cherries  immediately  in  front  of  him  and 
appeared  to  consider,  austerely,  what  form  his  reply 
should  take.  There  was  an  instant's  perceptible 
pause,  and  then  he  merely  bowed  toward  Alicia  as  if 
vaguely  to  acknowledge  the  kindness  of  her  recollec- 
tion. "  I  think,"  he  said  again,  "  that  I  will  not  ac- 
company you  to-night,  if  you  will  be  good  enough  to 
excuse  me." 

"You  must  excuse  us  both,"  Alicia  said,  definitely, 
"  I  should  much  rather  stay  at  home  and  talk  to 
Stephen." 

At  this  they  all  cried  out,  but  Miss  Livingstone 
would  not  change  her  mind.  "  I  haven't  seen  him  for 
three  weeks,"  she  said,  with  gentle  effrontery,  making 
nothing  of  his  presence,  "and  he's  much  more  im- 
proving than  either  of  you.  I  also  shall  choose  the 
better  part." 

"How  you  can  call  it  that,  with  Hilda  in  the  bal- 
ance  "  Duff  protested. 

"  But  then  you've  invited  Lady  Dolly.  After  win- 
ning six  thousand  there  will  be  no  holding  Lady 
Dolly.  She'll  be  capable  of  cat-calls  !  How  I  should 
love,"  Alicia  went  on,  "  to  have  Hilda  meet  her.  She 
would  be  a  mine  to  Hilda." 

"  For  pity's  sake,"  cried  her  brother,  "  stop  asking 
Hilda  and  people  who  are  a  mine  to  Hilda  !  It's  too 
perceptible,  the  way  she  digs  in  them." 

"  You  dear  old  thing,  you're  quite  clever  to-night ! 
What  difference  does  it  make  ?  They  never  know — 
they  never  dream!     I  wish   I   could    dig."      Alicia 


244  HILDA. 

looked  pensively  at  the  olive  between  her  finger  and 
thumb. 

"  Thank  heaven  you  can't,"  Duff  said  warmly.  It 
was  a  little  odd,  the  personal  note.  Alicia's  eyes  re- 
mained upon  the  olive. 

"  It's  all  she  lives  for." 

"  Well,"  Duff  declared,  "  I  can  imagine  higher  ends." 

"  You're  not  abusing  Hilda !  "  Alicia  said,  address- 
ing the  olive.  ^ 

"  Not  at  all.     Only  vindicating  y©u." 

It  did  single  them  out,  this  fencing.  Herbert  and 
Arnold  sat  as  spectators,  pushed,  in  a  manner,  aside. 

"  I  suppose  she  will  be  off  soon,"  Livingstone  said. 

"Oh,  dreadfully  soon.  On  the  15th.  I  had  a  note 
from  her  to-day." 

"Did  she  say  she  was  going?"  Stephen  asked 
quickly. 

"She  mentioned  the  company — she  is  the  com- 
pany, surely." 

"  Oh,  undoubtedly.     May  I — might  I  ask  for  a  little 
more  soda-water,  Alicia?"     He  made  the  request  so 
formally  that  she  glanced  at  him  with  surprise. 
ii;  .  "  Please  do — but  isn't  it  very  odious,  by  itself,  that 

way?    I   suppose  we  shouldn't  leave  out  Hamilton 
Bradley — he  certainly  counts." 

"  For  how  much  ?  "  inquired  her  brother.  "  He's 
going  to  pieces." 

"  Hilda  can  pull  him  together  again,"  Lindsay  said 
incautiously. 

"  Has  she  an  influence  for  good — over  him  ?  " 
Stephen  inquired  and  cleared  his  throat.  He  caught 
a  glance  exchanged  and  frowned. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  Duff  said,  "  I  fancy  it  is  for  good.     For 


11' • 


HILDA. 


245 


good,  certainly.  The  odd  part  of  it  is  that  he  began 
by  having  an  influence  over  her  which  she  declares 
improved  her  acting.  So  that  was  for  good,  too,  as  it 
turned  out.  I  think  she  makes  too  much  of  him.  To 
my  mind,  he  speaks  like  a  bit  of  consecrated  stage 
tradition  and  looks  like  a  bit  of  consecrated  stage  fur- 
niture— he,  and  his  thin  nose,  and  his  thin  lips,  and 
his  thin  eyebrows.  Personally,  I'm  sick  of  his  eye- 
brows." 

"  They'll  end  by  marrying,"  said  Surgeon-Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel Livingstone. 

"  Herbert  !  How  little  you  know  her !  " 
"  It's  possible  enough,"  Duff  said,  '♦  especially  if 
she  finds  him  in  any  way  necessary  to  her  production 
of  herself.  Hilda  has  knocked  about  too  much  to 
have  many  illusions.  One  is  pretty  sure  she  would 
place  that  first." 

"  You  are  saying  a  thing  which  is  monstrous ! " 
cried  Alicia. 

Unperturbed,  her  brother  supported  his  conviction. 
"  She'll  have  to  marry  him  to  get  rid  of  him,"  he  said. 
"  Fancy  the  opportunities  of  worrying  her  the  brute 
will  have  in  those  endless  ocean  voyages ! " 

"  Oh,  if  you  think  Hilda  could  be  ivorriedm\.o  any- 
thing  !  "  Miss  Livingstone  exclaimed  derisively.  "  If 
the  man  were  irritating,  do  you  suppose  she  wouldn't 
arrange— wouldn't  find  means—?  " 

"  She  would  have  him  put  in  irons,  no  doubt," 
Herbert  retorted,  "  or  locked  up  with  the  other  sad 
dogs,  in  charge  of  the  ship's  butcher." 

The  three  laughed  immoderately,  and  Stephen, 
looking  up,  came  in  at  the  end  with  a  smile.  Alicia 
pronounced  her  brother  too  absurd,  and  unfitted  by 


11: 


246 


HILDA. 


J 


(I  ■'1 


nature  to  know  anything  about  creatures  like  Hilda 
Howe.      "A   mere   man   to   begin   with,"    she  said 
"  You  haven't  the  ghost  of  a  temperament,  Herbert 
you  know  you  haven't."  ' 

"  He's  got  a  lovely  bedside  manner,"  Lindsay  re- 
marked,  "  and  that's  the  next  thing  to  it." 

"  Rubbish !  I  don't  want  to  hurry  you,"  Alicia 
glanced  at  the  watch  on  her  wrist,  "  but  unless  you 
and  Herbert  want  to  miss  half  the  first  act  you  had 
better  be  off.  Stephen  and  I  will  have  our  coffee 
comfortably  in  the  drawing-room  and  find  what  ex- 
cuses we  can  for  you." 

But  Stephen  put  out  his  hand  with  a  movement  of 
slightly  rigid  deprecation. 

"  If  it  is  not  too  vacillating  of  me,"  he  said,  "and 
I  may  be  forgiven,  I  think  I  will  change  my  mind  and 
go.  I  have  no  business  to  break  up  your  party,  and 
besides,  I  shall  probably  not  have  another  oppor- 
tunity—I should  rather  like  to  go.  To  the  theatre,  of 
course,  that  is.  Not  to  Bonsard's,  thanks  very  much." 
"Oh,  do  come  on  to  Bonsard's,"  Lindsay  said,  and 
Alicia  protested  that  he  would  miss  the  best  of  Lady 
Dolly,  but  Stephen  was  firm.  Bonsard's  was  beyond 
the  limit  of  his  indulgence. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 


Only  the  Sphinx  confronted  them,  after  all,  when 
they  arrived  at  the  theatre,  the  Sphinx  and  Lady  Dolly. 
The  older  feminine  presentment  sent  her  belittling  gaze 
over  their  heads  and  beyond  them  from  the  curtain  ; 
Lady  Dolly  turned  a  modish  head  to  greet  them  from 
the  front  of  the  box.     Lady  Dolly  raised  her  eyes  but 
not  her  elbows,  which  were  assisting  her  a  good  deal 
with  the  house  in  exploring  and  being  explored,  en- 
abling Colonel  John  Cummins,  who  sat  by  her  side,  to 
observe  how  very  perfect  and  adorable  the  cut  of  her 
bodice  was.     Since  Colonel  Cummins  was  accustomed 
to  say  in  moments  when  his  humour  escaped  his  dis- 
cretion, that  there  was  more  in  a  good  fit  than  meets 
the  eye,  the  rdle  of  Lady  Dolly's  elbows  could  hardly 
be  dismissed  as  unimportant.     Moreover,  the  husband 
attached  to  the  elbows  belonged  to  the  Department  of 
which  Colonel  John  was  the  head,  so  that  they  rested, 
one  may  say,  upon  a  very  special  plane. 

Alicia  disturbed  it  with  the  necessity  of  taking 
,  Colonel  Cummins'  place,  which  Lady  Dolly  accepted 
with  admirable  spirit,  assuring  the  usurper,  with  the 
most  engaging  candour,  that  she  simply  ought  never 
to  be  seen  without  turquoises.  "  Believe  it  or  not  as 
you  like,  but  I  like  you  better  every  time  I  see  you  in 
that  necklace."  Lady  Dolly  clasped  her  hands,  with 
her  fan  in  them,  in  the  abandonment  of  her  affection, 


248* 


HILDA. 


and  "  love  you  better  "  floated  back  and  dispersed 
itself  among  the  men.  Alicia  smiled  the  necessary 
acknowledgment.  All  the  women  she  knew  made 
compliments  to  her ;  it  was  a  kind  of  cult  among 
them.  The  men  had  sometimes  an  air  of  envying 
their  freedom  of  tongue.  "  Don't  say  that,"  she  re- 
turned lightly,  "or  Herbert  will  never  give  me  any 
diamonds."  She,  too,  looked  her  approval  of  Lady 
Dolly's  bodice  but  said  nothing.  It  was  doubtless 
precisely  because  she  distained  certain  forms  of  femi- 
nine barter  that  she  got  so  much  for  nothing. 

"And  where,"  demanded  Lady  Dolly,  in  an  electric 
whisper,  *'  did  you  find  that  dear,  sweet  little  priest  ? 
Do  introduce  him  to  me — at  least,  bye  and  bye,  when 
I've  thought  of  something  to  say.  Let  me  see,  wasn't 
it  Good  Friday  last  week  ?  I'll  ask  him  if  he  had  hot- 
cross  buns — or  do  people  eat  those  on  Boxing  Day  ? 
Pancakes  come  in  somewhere,  if  one  could  only  be 
sure  ! " 

Stephen  clung  persistently  to  the  back  of  the  box. 
His  senses  were  filled  for  the  moment  by  its  other 
occupants,  the  men  in  the  fresh  correctness  of  their 
evening  dress,  whose  least  gesture  seemed  to  spring 
from  an  indefinite  fulness  of  life,  the  two  women  in 
front,  a  kind  of  lustrous  tableau  of  what  it  was  possi- 
ble to  choose  and  to  enjoy.  They  were  grouped  and 
shut  off  in  a  high  light  which  seemed  to  proceed 
partly  from  the  usual  sources  and  partly  from  their 
own  personalities ;  he  saw  them  in  a  way  which  under- 
lined their  significance  at  every  point.  It  seemed  to 
Stephen  that  in  a  manner  he  profaned  this  temple  of 
what  he  held  to  be  poorest  and  cheapest  in  life,  a 
paradox  of  which  he  was  but  dimly  aware  in  his  dejec- 


HILDA. 


249 


tion.  A  sharp  impression  of  his  physical  inferiority 
to  the  other  men  assailed  him  ;  his  appreciation  of 
their  muscular  shoulders  had  a  rasp  in  it.  For  once 
the  poverty  of  spirit  to  which  he  held  failed  to  offer 
him  a  refuge.  His  eye  wandered  restlessly  as  if  attempt- 
ing futile  reconciliations,  and  the  thing  most  present 
with  him  was  the  worn-all-day  feeling  about  the  neck 
of  his  cassock.  He  fixed  his  attention  presently  in 
a  climax  of  passive  discomfort  on  the  curtain,  where, 
unconsciously,  his  gaze  crept  with  a  subtle  interroga- 
tion in  it  to  the  wide  eye-balls  of  the  Sphinx. 

The  stalls  gradually  filled,  although  it  was  a  second 
production  in  the  middle  of  the  week,  and  although 
the  gallery  and  rupee  seats  under  it  were  nearly  empty. 
The  piece  accounted  for  both.  When  Duff  Lindsay 
said  at  dinner  that  it  wasn't  "  up  to  much,"  he  spoke, 
I  fancy,  from  the  nearest  point  of  view  he  could  take 
to  that  of  the  Order  of  St.  Barnabas.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  The  Victim  of  Virtue  was  up  to  a  very  great 
deal,  but  its  points  were  so  delicate  that  one  must 
have  been  educated  rather  broadly  to  grasp  them, 
which  is  again,  perhaps,  a  foolish  contrariety  of  terms. 
At  all  events,  they  carried  no  appeal  to  the  theatre- 
goers from  the  sailing  ships  in  the  river  or  the  regi- 
ments in  the  fort,  who  turned  as  one  man  that  night  to 
Jimmy  Finnigan. 

Stephen  was  aware,  in  the  abstract,  of  what  he 
might  expect.  He  savoured  the  enterprises  of  the 
London  theatres  weekly  in  the  Saturday  Review  ;  he 
had  cast  a  remotely  observing  eye  upon  the  produc- 
tions of  this  particular  playwright  through  that 
medium  for  a  long  time.  They  formed  a  manifesta- 
tion of  the  outer  world  fit  enough  to  draw  a  glance  of 


250 


HILDA. 


speculation  from  the  inner ;  their  author  was  an  attro- 
bat  of  ideas.  Doubtless  we  are  all  clowns  in  the  eyes 
of  the  angels,  yet  we  have  the  habit  of  supposing  thit 
they  sometimes  look  down  upon  us.  It  was  thus,  if 
the  parallel  is  not  exaggerated,  that  Arnold  regarded 
the  author  of  The  Victim  of  Virtue.  His  attitude 
was  quite  taken  before  the  orchestra  ceased  playing ; 
it  was  made  of  negation  rather  than  criticism,  on  the 
basis  that  he  had  no  concern  with,  and  no  knowledge 
of,  such  things.  Deliberately  he  gave  his  mind  a  sur- 
face which  should  shed  promiscuous  invitation,  and 
folded  his  lips,  as  it  were,  against  the  rising  of  the  cur- 
tain. He  thought  of  Hilda  separately,  and  he  looked 
for  her  upon  the  boards  with  the  naivete  of  a  desire  to 
see  the  woman  he  knew. 

When  finally  he  did  see  her  she  made  before  him 
a  picture  that  was  to  remain  with  him  always  as  his 
last  impression  of  an  art  from  which  in  all  its  manifes- 
tations on  that  night  he  definitely  turned.  From  the 
aigrette  in  her  hair  to  the  paste  buckle  on  her  shoe 
she  was  mondaine.  Her  dress,  of  some  indefinite, 
slight  white  material,  clasped  at  the  waist  with  a  belt 
that  gave  the  beam  of  turquoises  and  the  gleam  of 
silver,  ministered  as  much  to  the  capricious  ideal  of 
the  moment  as  to  the  lines  and  curves  of  the  person  it 
adorned.  The  set  was  the  inevitable  modern  drawing- 
room,  and  she  sat  well  out  on  a  sofa  with  her  hands, 
in  long  black  gloves,  resting  stiffly,  palm  downward,  on 
each  side  of  her.  It  was  as  if  she  pushed  her  body 
forward  in  an  impulse  to  rise :  her  rigid  arms  thrust 
her  shoulders  up  a  little  and  accented  the  swell  of  her 
bosom.  It  was  a  vivid,  a  staccato  attitude.  It  ex- 
pressed a  temperament,  a  character,  fifty  other  things. 


HILDA. 


251 


t 


but  especially  epitomised  the  restraints  and  the 
licenses  of  a  world  of  drawing-rooms.  In  that  first 
brief  mute  instant  of  disclosure  she  was  all  that  she 
presently,  by  voice  and  movement,  proclaimed  herself 
to  be,  so  dazzling  and  complete  that  Stephen  literally 
blinked  at  the  revelation.  He  made  an  effort,  for  a 
moment  or  two,  to  pursue  and  detect  the  woman  who 
had  been  his  friend  ;  then  the  purpose  of  his  coming 
gradually  faded  from  his  mind,  and  he  stood  with 
folded  arms  and  absorbed  eyes  watching  the  other, 
the  Mrs.  Halliday  on  the  sofa,  setting  about  the  fulfil- 
ment of  a  purple  destiny. 

The  play  proceeded  and  Stephen  did  not  move — 
did  not  wince.  When  Mrs.  Halliday,  whose  mate  was 
exacting,  exclaimed,  "The  greatest  apostle  of  expe- 
diency was  St.  Paul.  He  preached  '  wives,  love  your 
husbands,' "  he  even  permitted  himself  the  ghost  of  a 
smile.  At  one  point  he  wished  himself  familiar  with 
the  plot ;  it  was  when  Hamilton  Bradley  came  jauntily 
on  as  Lord  Ingleton,  assuring  Mrs.  Halliday  that  im- 
morality was  really  only  shortsightedness.  Lady 
Dolly,  in  front,  repeated  Lord  Ingleton's  phrase  with 
ingenuous  wonder.  "  I  know  it's  clever,'  she  insisted, 
"  but  what  does  it  mean  ?  Now  that  other  thing — 
what  was  it  ? — *  Subtract  vice,  and  virtue  is  what  is 
left ' — that's  an  easy  one.  Write  it  down  on  your 
cuff  for  me,  will  you.  Colonel  Cummins?  I  shall  be 
so  sick  if  I  forget  it." 

Stephen  was  perhaps  the  only  person  in  the  box 
quite  oblivious  of  Lady  Dolly.  He  looked  steadily 
over  her  animated  shoulders  at  the  play,  wholly  in- 
volved in  an  effort  which  the  author  would  doubtless 
have  resented,  to  keep  its  current  and  direction  through 


252  HILDA. 

the  floating  d^'bris  of  constrained  sayings  with  which  it 
was  encumbered,  to  know  in  advance  whither  it  was 
carrying  its  Mrs.  Halliday,  and  how  far  Lord  Ingleton 
would  accompany.  Wiien  Lord  Ingleton  paused,  as  it 
were,  to  beg  four  people  to  "  have  nothing  to  do  with 
sentiment — it  so  often  leads  to  conviction,"  and  the 
house  murmured  its  amusement,  Arnold  shifted  his 
shoulders  impatiently.  '*  How  inconsistent,"  Lord 
Ingleton  reproached  Mrs.  Halliday  a  moment  later, 
"  to  wear  gloves  on  your  hands  and  let  your  thoughts 
go  candid."  Arnold  turned  to  Duff.  "There's  no  ex- 
cuse for  that,"  he  said,  but  Lindsay  was  hanging 
upon  Hilda's  rejoinder  and  did  not  hear  him. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  act,  where,  after  introducing 
Mrs.  Halliday  to  her  husband's  divorced  first  wife, 
Lord  Ingleton  is  left  rubbing  his  hands  with  gratifica- 
tion at  having  made  two  such  clever  women  "aware 
of  each  other,"  Stephen  found  himself  absolutely  un- 
willing to  discuss  the  piece  with  the  rest  of  the  party. 
As  he  left  the  box  to  walk  up  and  down  the  corridor 
outside  where  *t  was  cooler,  he  heard  the  voice  of 
Colonel  Cummins  lifted  in  further  quotation  :  "'To 
be  good  and  charming — what  a  sinful  superfluity ! ' 
I'm  sure  nobody  ever  called  you  superfluous.  Lady 
Dolly,"  and  was  vividly  aware  of  the  advisability  of 
taking  himself  and  his  Order  out  of  the  theatre.  He 
had  not  been  gratified,  or  even  from  any  point  ap- 
pealed to.  Hilda's  production  of  Mrs.  Halliday  was  so 
perfect  that  it  failed  absolutel}'  to  touch  him,  almost 
to  interest  him.  He  had  no  means  of  measuring  or  of 
valuing  that  kind  of  woman,  the  restless  brilliant  type 
that  lives  upon  its  emotions  and  tilts  at  the  problems 
of  its  sex  with  a  curious  comfort  in  the  joust.     He 


HILDA. 


253 


was  too  far  from  the  circle  of  her  modern  influence  to 
consider  her  with  anything  but  impatience  if  he  had 
met  her  original  person,  and  her  reflection,  her  repro- 
duction, seemed  to  him  frivolous  and  meaningless.  If 
he  went  then,  however,  he  would  go  as  he  came,  in  so 
far  as  the  play  was  concerned  ;  the  first  act,  relying  al- 
together upon  the  jugglery  of  its  dialogue,  gave  no 
clue  to  anything.  He  owed  it  to  Hilda,  after  all,  to  see 
the  piece  out.  It  was  only  fair  to  give  her  a  chance 
to  make  the  best  of  it.  He  decided  that  it  was  worth 
a  personal  sacrifice  to  give  it  her  and  went  back. 

He  was  sufficiently  indignant  with  the  leading  idea 
of  the  play,  and  sufficiently  absorbed  in  its  progress, 
at  the  end  of  the  second  act,  to  permit  Lady  Dolly  to 
capture  him  before  it  occurred  to  him  that  he  had  the 
use  of  his  legs.  Her  enthusiasm  was  so  great  that  it 
reduced  him  to  something  like  equivocation.  She 
wanted  to  know  if  anything  could  be  more  splendid 
than  Mr.  Bradley  as  Lord  Ingleton  ;  she  confided  to 
Stephen  that  that  was  what  she  called  rrrt'/ wickedness, 
the  kind  that  did  the  most  harm,  and  invited  him,  by 
inference,  to  a  liberal  judgment  of  stupid  sinners. 
He  sat  emitting  short  unsmiling  sentences  with  eyes 
nervously  fugitive  from  Lady  Dolly's  too  proximate 
opulence  until  the  third  act  began.  Then  he  gave 
place  with  embarrassed  alacrity  to  Colonel  Cummins, 
and  folded  his  arms  again  at  the  back  of  the  box. 

Before  it  was  finished  he  had  the  gratification  of 
recognising  at  least  one  Hilda  that  he  knew.  The 
newspapers  found  in  her  interpretation  the  deve.jp^ 
ment  of  a  soul,  and  one  remembered,  reading  them, 
that  a  cliche'  is  a  valuable  thing  in  a  hurry.  A  phrase 
which  spoke  of  a  soul  bruised  out  of  life  and  rushing 


254 


HILDA. 


to  annihilation  would  have  been  more  precise.  The 
demand  upon  her  increased  steadily  as  the  ?ict  went 
on,  and  as  she  met  it,  there  slipped  into  her  acting 
some  of  her  own  potentialities  of  motive  and  of  pas- 
sion. She  offered  to  the  shaping  circumstance  rich 
material  and  abundant  plasticity,  and  when  the  per- 
secution of  her  destiny  required  her  to  throw  herself 
irretrievably  away,  she  did  it  with  a  splendid  apprecia- 
tion of  large  and  definite  movements  that  was  es- 
sentially of  herself. 

The  moment  of  it  had  a  bold  gruesomeness  that 
caught  the  breath — a  disinterment  on  the  stage  in 
search  of  letters  that  would  prove  the  charge  against 
the  second  year  of  Mrs.  Halliday's  married  life,  her 
letters  buried  with  the  poet.  It  was  an  advantage 
which  only  the  husband  of  Mrs.  Halliday  would  have 
claimed  to  bring  so  helpless  a  respondent  before  even 
the  informal  court  at  the  graveyard  ;  but  it  gave  Hilda 
a  magnificent  opportunity  of  wild,  mad  apostrophe  to 
the  skull,  holding  it  tenderly  with  both  hands,  while 
Lord  Ingleton  smiled  appreciatively  in  advance  of  the 
practical  benevolence  which  was  to  sustain  the  lady 
through  the  divorce  court  and  in  the  final  scene  offer 
to  her  and  to  the  prejudices  of  the  British  public  the 
respectability  of  his  name. 

It  was  over  with  a  rush  at  the  end,  leaving  the  au- 
dience uncertain  whether,  after  all,  enough  attention 
had  been  paid  to  that  tradition  of  the  footlights 
which  insists  on  so  nice  a  sense  of  opprobrium  and 
compensation,  but  convinced  of  its  desire  to  applaud. 
Duff  Lindsay  turned,  as  the  wave  of  clapping  spent 
itself,  to  say  to  Stephen  that  he  had  never  respected 
Hamilton  Bradley's  acting  so  much.     He  said  it  to 


HILDA. 


255 


Herbert  Livingstone  instead  ;   the  priest  had  disap- 
peared. 

The  outgoers  looked  at  Arnold  curiously  as  he  made 
his  way  among  them  in  a  direction  which  was  not  that 
of  the  exit.  He  went  with  hurried  purpose,  in  the  face 
of  them  all,  toward  the  region,  badly  lighted  and  im- 
perfectly closed,  which  led  to  the  rear  of  the  stage. 
He  opened  doors  into  dark  closets,  and  one  which 
gave  upon  the  road,  retraced  his  unfamiliar  steps  and 
asked  a  question,  to  which — it  was  so  unusual  from 
one  in  his  habit — he  received  a  hesitating  but  correct 
reply.  A  moment  later  he  passed  Mr.  Llewellyn  Stan- 
hope, who  stood  in  his  path  with  a  hostile  stare  and 
got  out  of  it  with  a  deferential  bow,  and  knocked  at  a 
door  upon  which  was  pasted  the  name,  in  large  red 
letters  cut  from  a  poster,  of  Miss  Hilda  Howe.  It 
was  a  little  ajar,  so  he  entered,  when  she  cried,  "Come 
in !  "  with  the  less  hesitation.  Hilda  sat  on  the  single 
chair  the  place  contained  in  the  dress  and  make-up  of 
the  last  scene.  A  Mohammedan  servant,  who  looked 
up  incuriously,  was  unlacing  her  shoes.  Various  gar- 
ments hung  about  on  nails  driven  into  the  unpainted 
walls,  others  overflowed  from  a  packing-box  in  one 
corner.  A  common  teak-wood  dressing-table  held 
make-up  saucers  and  powder-puffs  and  some  remnants 
of  cold  fowl  which  had  not  been  partaken  of,  ap- 
parently, with  the  assistance  of  a  knife  and  fork.  A 
candle  stood  in  an  empty  soda-water  bottle  on  each 
side  of  the  looking-glass,  and  there  was  no  other  light. 
On  the  floor  a  pair  of  stays,  old  and  soiled,  sprawled 
with  unconcern.  The  place  looked  sordid  and  mis- 
erable, and  Hilda,  sitting  in  the  middle  of  it,  still  in 
the  yellow  wig  and  painted  face  of  Mrs.  Halliday,  all 


256  HILDA. 

wrong  at  that  range,  gave  it  a  note  of  false  artifice, 
violent  and  grievous.  Stephen  stood  in  the  doorway 
grasping  the  handle,  saying  nothing,  and  an  instant 
passed  before  she  knew  with  certainty,  in  the  wretched 
light,  that  it  was  he.  Then  she  sprang  up  and  made 
a  step  toward  him  as  if  toward  victory  and  reward,  but 
checked  herself  in  time.  "  Is  it  possible  ? "  she  ex- 
claimed.    "  I  did  not  know  you  were  in  the  theatre." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  with  moderation,  "  I  have  seen  this 
— this  damnable  play." 

"Damnable?     Oh! " 

"  It  has  caused  me,"  he  went  on,  "  to  regret  the  sub- 
stance of  my  letter  this  morning.  I  failed  to  realise 
that  this  was  the  kind  of  work  you  devote  your  life  to. 
I  now  see  that  you  could  not  escape  its  malign  in- 
fluence— that  no  woman  could.  I  now  think  that  the 
alternative  that  has  been  revealed  to  you,  of  remaining 
in  Calcutta,  is  a  chance  of  escape  offered  you  by  God 
himself.  Take  it.  I  withdraw  my  foolish,  ignorant 
opposition."  '* 

"  Oh,"  she  cried,  "  do  you  really  think " 

"  Take  it,"  he  repeated  and  closed  the  door. 

Hilda  sat  still  for  some  time  after  the  servant  had 
finished  unlacing  her  shoes.  A  little  tender  smile 
played  oddly  about  her  carmined  lips.  "  Dear  heart," 
she  said  aloud,  "  I  was  going  to." 


I 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

"  I  WOULD  simply  give  anything  to  be  there/* 
Miss  Livingstone  said,  with  a  look  of  sincere  desire. 

"  I  should  love  to  have  you,  but  it  isn't  possible. 
You  might  meet  men  you  knew  who  had  been  in- 
vited by  particular  lady  friends  among  the  company." 

"  Oh,  well,  that  of  course  would  be  odious." 

"Very,  I  should  think,"  Hilda  agreed.  "You  must 
be  satisfied  with  a  faithful  report  of  it.  I  promise 
you  that." 

"  You  have  asked  Mr.  Lindsay,"  Alicia  complained. 

"  That's  quite  a  different  thing — and  if  I  hadn't 
Llewellyn  Stanhope  would.  Stanhope  cherishes  Duff 
as  he  cherishes  the  critic  of  the  Chronicle.  He  refers 
to  him  as  a  pillar  of  the  legitimate.  Whenever  he 
begs  me  to  turn  the  Norwegian  crank,  he  says,  '  I'm 
sure  Mr.  Lindsay  would  come.'" 

Miss  Howe  was  at  the  top  of  the  staircase  in 
Middleton  street,  on  the  point  of  departure.  It  was 
to  be  the  night  of  her  last  appearance  for  the  season 
and  her  benefit,  followed  by  a  supper  in  her  honour, 
at  which  Mr.  Stanhope  and  his  company  would  take 
leave  of  those  whose  acquaintance,  as  he  expressed  it, 
business  and  pleasure  had  given  them  during  the 
months  that  were  past.  It  was  this  function  that 
Alicia,  at  the  top  of  the  staircase,  so  ardently  desired 
to  attend. 


258  HILDA. 

•'  No,  I  won't  kiss  you,"  Hilda  said,  as  the  other 
put  her  cool  cheek  forward  ;  "  I'm  so  divinely  happy 
— some  of  it  might  escape." 

Alicia's  voice  pursued  her  as  she  ran  down  stairs. 
"  Remember,"  she  said,  "  I  don't  approve.  I  don't 
at  all  agree  either  with  my  reverend  cousin  or  with 
you.  I  think  you  ought  to  find  some  other  way  or 
let  it  go.  Go  home  instead  ;  go  straight  to  London 
and  insist  on  your  chance.  After  six  weeks  you  will 
have  forgotten  the  name  of  his  Order." 

Hilda  looked  back  with  a  smile.  Her  face  was 
splendid  with  the  dawn  and  promise  of  success. 
"Don't  blaspheme,"  she  cried.  Alicia,  leaning  down, 
was  visited  by  a  flash  of  quotation.  *'  Well,"  she 
said,  "  *  nothing  in  this  life  becomes  you  like  the 
leaving  of  it,' '  and  went  back  to  her  room  to  write 
to  Laura  Filbert  in  Plymouth.  She  wrote  often  to 
Miss  Filbert,  at  Duff's  request.  It  gratified  her  that 
she  was  able,  without  a  pang,  to  address  four  pages  of 
pleasantly  colourless  communication  to  Mr.  Lindsay's 
fiancee.  Her  letters  stood  for  a  medicine  surprisingly 
easy  to  take,  aimed  at  the  convalescence  which  she 
already  anticipated  in  the  future  immediately  beyond 
Duff's  miserable  marriage.  If  that  event  had  prom- 
ised fortuitously  she  would  have  faced  it,  one  fancies, 
with  less  sanguine  anticipations  for  herself ;  but  the 
black  disaster  that  rode  on  with  it  brought  her  cer- 
tain aids  to  the  spirit,  certain  hopes  of  herself. 
Laura's  prompt  replies,  with  their  terrible  margins 
and  painstaking  solecisms,  came  to  be  things  Miss 
Livingstone  looked  forward  to.  She  read  them  with 
a  beating  heart  in  the  unconscious  apprehension  of 
some    revelation   of    improvement.     She  was  quite 


HILDA. 


259 


unaware  of  it,  but  she  entertained  toward  the 
Simpsons  an  attitude  of  misgiving  in  this  regard. 

Hilda  went  on  about  her  business.  As  usual,  her 
business  was  important  and  imperative  ;  nothing  was 
lightened  for  her  this  last  day.  She  drove  about 
from  place  to  place  in  the  hot,  slatternly  city,  putting 
more  than  her  usual  vigour  and  directness  into  all  she 
did.  It  seemed  to  her  that  the  sunlight  burning  on 
the  tiles,  pouring  through  the  crowded  streets,  had 
more  than  ever  a  vivid  note;  and  so  much  spoke  to 
her,  came  to  her,  from  the  profuse  and  ingenuous  life 
which  streamed  about  her,  that  she  leaned  a  little 
forward  to  meet  it  with  happy  eyes  and  tender  lips 
that  said,  "  I  know.  I  see."  She  was  living  for  the 
moment  which  should  exhale  itself  somewhere  about 
midnight,  after  the  lights  had  gone  out  on  her  last 
appearance,  living  for  it  as  a  Carmelite  might  live  for 
the  climax  of  her  veil  and  her  vows  if  it  were  conceiv- 
able that  beyond  the  cell  and  the  grating  she  saw  the 
movement  and  the  colour  and  the  passion  of  a  wider  life. 
All  Hilda's  splendid  vitality  went  into  her  intention, 
of  which  she  was  altogether  mistress,  riding  it  and 
reining  it  in  a  straight  course  through  the  encumbered 
hours.  It  keyed  her  to  a  finer  and  more  eager 
susceptibility  ;  and  the  things  she  saw  stayed  with  her, 
passing  into  a  composite  day  which  the  years  were 
hardly  to  dim  for  her. 

She  could  live  like  that,  for  the  purposes  of  a 
period,  wrought  up  to  immense  keenness  of  sense  and 
brilliancy  of  energy,  making  steadily  for  some  point 
of  feeling  or  achievement  flashing  gloriously  on  the 
horizon.  It  is  already  plain,  perhaps,  that  she  re- 
joiced in  such  strokes,  and  that  life  as  she  found  it 
worth  living  was  marked  by  a  succession  of  them. 


26o  HILDA. 

She  nad  kept,  even  from  Lindsay,  what  she  meant 
to  do.  When  she  stepped  from  his  brougham,  flushed 
after  the  indubitable  triumph  of  the  evening,  with  her 
arms  full  of  real  bouquets  from  Chatterjee's — no  eight- 
anna  bazaar  confections  edged  with  silver  tinsel — it 
occurred  to  her  that  this  reticence  was  not  altogether 
fair  to  so  constant  a  friend.  He  was  there,  keen  and 
eager  as  ever  in  all  that  concerned  her,  foremost  with 
his  congratulations  on  the  smiling  fringe  of  the  party 
assembled  to  do  her  honour.  It  was  a  party  of  some 
brilliance  in  its  way,  though  its  way  was  diverse; 
there  was  no  steady  glow.  Fillimore  said  of  the  com- 
pany that  it  comprised  all  the  talent,  and  Fillimore, 
editor  of  the  Indian  Sportsman  and  Racing  Gazette^ 
was  a  judge.  He  said  it  to  Hagge,  of  the  Bank  of 
Hindustan,  who  could  hardly  have  been  an  owner  on 
three  hundred  rupees  a  month  without  conspicuous 
ability  disconnected  with  his  ledgers ;  and  Hagge 
looked  gratified.  Though  so  promising,  he  was  young. 
Lord  Bobby  was  there  from  Government  House.  Lord 
Bobby  always  accompanied  the  talent,  who  were 
very  kind  to  him.  He  was  talking,  when  Hilda 
arrived,  to  the  editor  of  the  Indian  Empire^  who 
wanted  to  find  out  the  date  of  Her  Excellency's  fancy- 
dress  party  for  children,  in  order  that  he  might  make 
a  leaderette  of  it ;  but  Lord  Bobby  couldn't  remember 
— had  to  promise  to  drop  him  a  line.  Gianacchi  was 
there,  trying  to  treat  Fillimore  with  coldness  because 
the  Sportsman  had  discovered  too  many  virtues  in  his 
Gadfly^  exalted  her,  indeed,  into  a  favourite  for  Satur- 
day's hurdle  race,  a  notability  for  which  Gianacchi 
felt  himself  too  modest.  "  They  say,"  Fillimore  had 
written,  "  that  the  Gadfly  has  been  seen  jumping  by 


HILDA.  261 

moonlight  " — the  sort  of  the  thing  to  spoil  any  book. 
Fillimore  was  an  acute  and  weary-looking  little  man 
with  a  peculiarly  sweet  smile  and  an  air  of  cynicism 
which  gave  to  his  lightest  word  a  dangerous  and 
suspicious  air.  It  was  rumoured  in  official  circles 
that  he  had  narrowly  escaped  beheading  for  pointing 
out  too  ironically  the  disabilities  of  a  Viceroy  who 
insisted  on  reviewing  the  troops  from  a  cushioned 
carriage  with  the  horses  taken  out.  Fillimore  seemed 
to  think  that  if  nature  had  not  made  such  a  nobleman 
a  horseman,  the  Queen-Empress  should  not  have 
made  him  Governor-General  of  India.  Fillimore  was 
full  of  prejudices.  Gianacchi,  however,  found  it  im- 
possible to  treat  him  coldly.  His  smoothness  of 
temperament  stood  in  the  way.  Instead,  he  imparted 
the  melodious  information  that  the  Gadfly  had  pecked 
badly  twice  at  Tollygunge  that  morning,  and  smiled 
with  pathetic  philosophy.  "  Always  let  *em  use  their 
noses,"  said  Fillimore,  and  there  seemed  to  be  satire 
in  it.  Fillimore  certainly  had  a  flair,  and  when  Beryl 
Stace  presently  demanded  of  him,  "What's  the  dead 
bird  going  to  be  on  Saturday,  Filly?"  he  put  it' gener- 
ously at  her  service.  Among  the  friends  of  Mr. 
Stanhope  and  his  company  were  also  several  gentle- 
men, content,  for  their  personal  effect,  with  the  lustre 
they  shed  upon  the  Stock  Exchange — gentlemen  of 
high  finance,  who  wrote  their  names  at  the  end  of 
directors*  reports,  but  never  in  the  visitors*  book  at 
Government  House,  who  were  little  more  to  the 
Calcutta  world  than  published  receipts  for  so  many 
lakhs,  except  when  they  were  seen  now  and  then  driv- 
ing in  fleet  dog-carts  across  the  Maidan  toward  com- 
fortable  suburban   residences  where   ladies  were  not 


262  HILDA. 

entertained.  They  were  extremely,  curiously  de- 
voted to  business ;  but  if  they  allowed  themselves  any 
amusement  other  than  company  promoting  it  was  the 
theatre,  of  which  their  appreciation  had  sometimes  an 
odd  relation  to  the  merits  of  performance.  This 
supper,  on  the  part  of  Miss  Beryl  Stace  and  one  or 
two  other  of  Mr.  Stanhope's  artistes,  might  have  been 
considered  a  return  of  hospitality  to  these  gentlemen, 
since  the  suburban  residences  stood  lavishly  open  to 
the  profession. 

Altogether,  perhaps,  there  were  fifty  people,  and  an 
eye  that  looked  for  the  sentiment,  the  pity  of  things, 
would  have  distinguished  at  once  on  about  half  the 
faces,  especially  those  of  the  women,  the  used  under- 
lined look  that  spoke  of  the  continual  play  of  muscle 
and  forcing  of  feeling.  It  gave  them  a  shabbily  com- 
plicated air,  contrasting  in  a  strained  and  sorry  way 
even  with  the  countenances  of  the  brokers  and 
bankers,  where  nature  had  laid  on  a  smooth  wash  and 
experience  had  not  interfered.  They  were  all  gay 
and  enthusiastic  as  Miss  Howe  entered  ;  they  loafed 
forward,  broad  shirt-fronts  lustrous,  fat  hands  in 
financial  pockets,  with  their  admiration,  and  Fillimore 
put  out  his  cigarette.  Hilda  came  down  among  them 
from  the  summit  of  her  achievement,  clasping  their 
various  hands.  They  were  all  personally  responsible 
for  her  success,  she  made  them  feel  that,  and  they 
expanded  in  the  conviction.  She  moved  in  a  kind  of 
tide  of  infectious  vitality,  subtly  drawing  from  every 
human  flavour  in  the  room  the  power  to  hold  and 
show  something  akin  to  it  in  herself,  a  fugitive 
assimilation  floating  in  the  lamplight  with  the  odour 
of  the  flowers  and  the  soup,  to  be  extinguished  with 


HILDA. 


263 


the  occasion.  They  looked  at  her  up  and  down  the 
table  with  an  odd  smiling  attraction  ;  they  told  each 
other  that  she  was  in  great  form.  Mr.  Fillimore  was 
of  the  opinion  that  she  couldn't  be  outclassed  at  the 
Lyceum,  and  Mr.  Hagge  responded  with  vivacity  that 
there  were  few  places  where  she  wouldn't  stretch  the 
winner's  neck.  The  feast  was  not,  after  all,  one  of 
great  bounty,  Mr.  Stanhope  justly  holding  that  the 
opportunity,  the  little  gathering,  was  the  thing,  and  it 
was  not  long  before  the  moment  of  celebration  arrived 
for  which  the  gentlemen  of  the  Stock  Exchange,  to 
judge  from  their  undrained  glasses,  seemed  to  be  re- 
serving themselves.  There  certainly  had  been  one 
tin  of  pat6,  and  it  circulated  at  that  end  ;  on  the  other 
hand,  the  ladies  had  all  the  fondants.  So  that  when 
Mr.  Llewellyn  Stanhope  rose  with  the  sentiment  of  the 
evening,  he  found  satisfaction,  if  not  repletion,  in  the 
regards  turned  upon  him. 

Llewellyn  got  up  with  modest  importance,  and  ran 
a  hand  through  his  yellow  hair,  not  dramatically,  but 
with  the  effect  of  collecting  his  ideas.  He  leaned  a 
little  forward  ;  he  was  extremely,  happily  conspicuous. 
The  attention  of  the  two  lines  of  faces  seemed  to 
overcome  him,  for  an  instant,  with  dizzy  pleasure  ; 
Hilda's  beside  him  was  bent  a  little,  waiting. 

**  Ladies  and  gentlemen,"  said  Mr.  Stanhope,  look- 
ing with  precision  up  and  down  the  table  to  be  still 
more  inclusive,  *'  we  have  met  together  to-night  in 
honour  of  a  lady  who  has  given  this  city  more  pleasure 
in  the  exercise  of  her  profession  than  can  be  said  of 
any  single  performer  during  the  last  twenty  years. 
Cast  your  eye  back  over  the  theatrical  record  of  Cal- 
cutta for  that  space  of  time,  and  you  yourselves  will 


264 


HILDA. 


admit  that  there  has  been  nobody  that  could  be  said  to 
have  come  within  a  mile  of  her  shadow,  if  I  may  use 
the  language  of  metaphor.  [Applause,  led  by  Mr.  Filli- 
more.]  I  would  ask  you  to  remember,  at  the  same 
time,  that  this  pleasure  has  been  of  a  superior  class. 
I  freely  admit  that  this  is  a  great  satisfaction  to  me 
personally.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  put  myself  forward 
on  this  auspicious  occasion,  but,  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
if  I  have  one  ambition  more  than  another,  it  is  to  pro- 
mote the  noble  cause  of  the  unfettered  drama.  To 
this  I  may  say  I  have  been  vowed  from  the  cradle,  by 
a  sire  who  was  well  known  in  the  early  days  of  the 
metropolis  of  Sydney  as  a  pioneer  in  the  great  move- 
ment which  has  made  the  dramatic  talent  of  Australia 
what  it  is.  To-day  a  magnificent  theatre  rises  on  the 
site  forever  consecrated  to  me  by  those  paternal  la- 
bours, but — but  I  can  never  forget  it.  In  Miss  Hilda 
Howe  I  have  found  a  great  coadjutor,  and  one  who  is 
willing  to  consecrate  her  royal  abilities  in  the  same 
line  as  myself,  so  that  we  have  been  able  to  maintain 
a  high  standard  of  production  among  you,  prices  re- 
maining as  usual.  I  have  to  thank  you,  as  represent- 
ing the  public  of  the  Indian  capital,  for  the  kind 
support  which  has  been  so  encouraging  to  Miss  Howe, 
the  company,  and  myself  personally,  during  the  past 
season.  Many  a  time  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  my 
profession  have  said  to  me, 'Mr.  Stanhope,  why  do 
you  go  to  Calcutta?  That  city  is  a  death-trap  for 
professionals,*  and  now  the  past  season  proves  that  I 
was  right  and  they  were  wrong;  and  the  magnificent 
houses,  the  enthusiasm,  and  the  appreciation  that  have 
greeted  our  efforts,  especially  on  the  Saturday  even- 
ing performances,  show  plain   enough  that  when  a 


HILDA. 


265 


good  thing  is  available,  the  citizens  of  Calcutta  won't 
be  happy  till  they  get  it.  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I 
invite  you  to  join  me  in  drinking  the  health,  happi- 
ness, and  prosperity  of  Miss  Hilda  Howe." 

"Miss  Howe!"  "Miss  Howe!"  "Miss  Hilda 
Howe!"  In  the  midst  of  a  pushing  back  of  chairs 
and  a  movement  of  feet,  the  response  was  quick  and 
universal.  Hilda  accepted  their  nods  and  becks  and 
waving  glasses  with  a  slow  movement  of  her  beautiful 
eyes  and  a  quiet  smile.  In  the  subsidence  of  sound 
Mr.  Stanhope's  voice  was  heard  again  :  "  We  can  hardly 
expect  a  speech  from  Miss  Howe,  but  perhaps  Mr. 
Hamilton  Bradley,  whose  international  reputation  need 
hardly  be  referred  to,  will  kindly  say  a  few  words  on 
her  behalf." 

Then,  with  deliberate  grace,  Hilda  rose  from  her 
chair,  a  tall  figure  among  them,  looking  down  with  a 
hint  of  compassionateness  on  the  little  man  at  her  left. 
She  stood  for  an  instant  without  speaking,  as  if  the 
flushed  silence,  the  expectation,  the  warm  magnetism 
that  drew  all  their  eyes  to  her  were  enough.  Then 
out  of  something  like  reverie  she  came  to  the  matter. 
She  threw  up  her  beautiful  face  with  one  of  the  supreme 
gestures  which  belonged  to  her.  "  I  think,"  she  said, 
with  a  little  smiling  bow  in  his  direction,  "that  I  will 
not  trouble  my  friend  Mr.  Bradley.  He  has  rendered 
me  so  many  kind  services  already  that  I  am  sure  I 
might  count  upon  him  again,  but  this  is  a  thing  I  should 
like  to  do  for  myself.  I  would  not  have  my  thanks 
chilled  by  even  the  passage  from  my  heart  to  his." 
There  was  something  like  bravado  in  the  glance  that 
rested  lightly  on  Bradley  with  this.  One  would  have 
said  that  parley  of  hearts  between  them  was  not  a 
thing  that  as  a  rule  she  courted.    "  I  can  only  offer  you 


266 


HILDA. 


my  thanks,  poor  things  to  which  we  can  give  neither 
life  nor  substance,  yet  I  beg  that  you  will  somehow 
take  them  and  remember  them.  It  is  to  me,  and  will 
always  be,  a  kind  of  crowning  satisfaction  that  you 
were  pleased  to  come  together  to-night  to  tell  me  I 
had  done  well.  You  know  yourselves,  and  I  know, 
how  much  too  flattering  your  kindness  is,  but  perhaps 
it  will  hurt  nobody  if  to-night  1  take  it  as  it  is  gener- 
ously offered,  and  let  it  make  me  as  happy  as  you  in- 
tend me  to  be.  At  all  events,  no  one  could  disturb 
me  in  believing  that  in  obtaining  your  praise  and  your 
good  wishes  I  have  done  well  enough." 

For  a  few  seconds  she  stopped  speaking,  but  she 
held  them  with  her  eyes  from  the  mistake  of  suppos- 
ing she  had  done.  Lindsay,  who  was  watching  her 
closely  and  hanging  with  keen  pleasure  on  the  sweet- 
ness and  precision  of  what  she  found  to  say,  noted  a 
swift  constriction  pass  upon  her  face,  and  was  ready  to 
swear  to  himself  in  astonishment  that  tears  were  in  her 
eyes.  There  was  a  half-tone  of  difference,  too,  in  her 
voice  when  she  raised  it  again,  a  firmer  vibration,  as  if 
she  passed,  deliberate  and  aware,  out  of  one  phase  into 
another. 

*'■  No,"  she  went  on,  **  I  am  nots  on  this  occasion  ; 
indeed,  I  feel  that  I  should  like  to  keep  your  eyes 
upon  me  for  a  long  time  to-night,  and  go  on  talk- 
ing far  past  your  patience  or  my  wit.  For  I  cannot 
think  it  likely  that  our  ways  will  cross  again."  Mere 
her  words  grew  suddenly  low  and  hurried.  '*  If  I  may 
tresspass  u^  on  yqur  interest  so  much  further,  I  have  to 
tell  you  that  my  connection  with  the  stage  closes  with 
this  evening's  performance.  Tomorrow  I  join  the 
Anglican  Order  of  the  Sisters  of  St.  Paul — the  Baker 
Institution — in  C?lcutta,  as  a  novice.     They  have  ta- 


HILDA. 


267 


ken  me  without  much  question  because — because  the 
plague  hospitals  of  this  cheerful  country  " — she  '  • 
trived  a  smile — "  have  made  a  great  demand  upon 
their  body.  Tiiat  is  all.  I  have  nothing  more  to  say." 
It  was,  after  all,  ineffective,  the  denouement,  or  per- 
haps it  was  too  effective.  In  any  case  it  was  received 
in  silence,  the  applause  that  was  ready  falling  back  on 
itself,  inconsistent  and  absurd.  The  incredulity  of 
Llewellyn  Stanhope  might  have  been  electric  had  it 
found  words,  but  that  gentleman's  protests  were  made 
in  violent  whispers,  to  which  Hilda,  who  sat  playing 
with  a  faded  rose,  seemed  to  pay  no  attention  what- 
ever. One  might  have  thought  her  more  overcome 
than  anyone,  she  seemed  to  make  one  or  two  unsuc- 
cessful efforts  to  raise  her  head.  There  was  a  mo- 
ment of  waiting  for  someone  to  reply  :  eyes  were 
turned  toward  Mr.  Bradley,  and  when  it  became  plain 
that  no  one  would,  broken  murmurs  of  talk  began 
with  a  note  of  deprecation  and  many  shakes  of  the 
head.  The  women  especially  looked  tragically  at 
their  neighbours  with  very  wide-cpen  eyes.  Presently 
a  chair  was  drawn  back,  then  another,  and  people  be- 
gan to  filter,  in  slow  embarrassment,  toward  the  door. 
Lindsay  came  up  with  Hilda's  cloak.  "You  won't 
mind  my  coming  with  you,"  he  said  ;  '*  I  should  like  to 
hear  the  details."  Beryl  Stace  made  as  if  to  embrace 
her,  pouring  out  abusive  ilisbelief,  but  Hilda  waved 
her  away  with  a  gesture  almost  of  irritation.  Some 
of  the  others  said  a  perfunctory  word  or  two  and  went 
away  with  lingering  backward  looks.  I*^  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  Mr.  Lindsay's  brou^^ham  had  followed  the 
other  vehicle  into  the  lamp-lit  ways  of  Calcutta  and 
ovily  the  •native  table  servant-^  remained  in  somewhat 
resentful  possession  of  what  was  left. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 


If  Duff  Lindsay  had  apprehended  that  the  reception 
of  Miss  Filbert  by  the  Simpsons  would  involve  any 
strain  upon  the  affection  his  friends  bore  him,  the  event 
must  have  relieved  him  in  no  small  degree.  He  was 
soon  mrde  aware  of  its  happy  character  and  constantly 
kept  assured.  Indeed,  it  seemed  that  whenever  Mrs. 
Simpson  had  nothing  else  to  do  she  laid  her  pen  to  the 
task  of  telling  him  once  again  how  cherished  a  satisfac- 
tion they  found  in  Laura  and  how  reluctant  they  would 
be  to  lose  it.  She  wrote  in  that  strain  of  facile  sym- 
pathy which  seems  part  ot  an  Englishwoman's  educa- 
tion, and  often  begged  him  to  believe  that  the  more  she 
knew  of  their  sweet  and  heavenly-minded  guest  the 
more  keenly  she  realised  how  dreary  for  him  must  have 
been  the  pang  of  parting  and  how  arid  the  months  of 
separation.  Mrs.  Simpson  herself  was  well  acquainted 
with  these  trials  of  the  spirit.  She  and  her  husband 
had  been  divided  by  those  wretched  thousands  of 
miles  of  ocean  for  three  years,  one  week,  and  five  days, 
all  told,  during  their  married  life ;  she  knew  what  it 
meant.  But  if  Duff  could  only  see  how  well  and 
blooming  his  beloved  one  was — she  had  gained  twelve 
pounds  already — Mrs.  Simpson  was  sure  the  timj  of 
waiting  would  pass  less  heavily.  For  herself,  it  was 
cruel,  but  she  smiled  upon  the  deferred  reunion  oF 
hearts :  she  would  keep  Laura  till  the  very  last  day, 


HILDA. 


269 


and  hoped  to  establish  a  permanent  claim  on  her. 
She  was  just  the  daughter  Mrs.  Simpson  would  have 
liked,  so  unspotted,  so  pure,  so  wrapped  in  high  ideals, 
and  then  the  page  would  reflect  something  of  the 
adoring  awe  in  which  Mrs.  Simpson  would  have  held 
such  a  daughter.  It  will  be  seen  that  Mrs.  Simpson 
knew  how  to  express  herself,  but  there  was  a  fine  sin- 
cerity behind  the  mask  of  words;  Miss  Filbert  had 
entered  very  completely  into  possession. 

It  had  its  abnormal  side,  the  way  she  entered  into 
possession.  Everything  about  Laura  Filbert  had  its 
abnormal  side,  none  the  less  obvious  because  it  was 
inward  and  invisible.  Nature,  of  course,  worked  with 
her — one  might  say  that  nature  really  did  it,  since  in 
the  end  she  was  practically  unconscious,  except  for 
the  hope  that  certain  souls  had  been  saved,  that  any- 
thing of  the  sort  had  happened.  She  conquered  the 
Simpsons  and  their  friends  chiefly  by  the  simple  im- 
possibility that  they  should  conquer  her,  walking  im- 
mobile among  them  even  while  she  admired  Mr. 
Simpson's  cauliflowers  and  approved  the  quality  of 
Mrs.  Simpson's  house  linen.  It  must  be  confessed 
that  nothing  in  her  surroundings  spoke  to  her  more 
loudly  or  more  subtly  than  these  things.  In  view  of 
what  happened,  poor  dear  Alicia  Livingstone's  antici- 
pation that  the  Simpsons  and  their  circle  would  have 
a  radical  personal  effect  upon  Laura  Filbert,  became 
ludicrous.  They  had  no  effect  at  all.  She  took  no 
tint,  no  curve.  She  appeared  not  to  see  that  these 
precious  things  were  to  be  had  fo/  the  assimilation. 
Her  grace  remained  exclusively  that  of  holiness  and 
continued  to  fail  to  have  any  relation  to  the  common 
little  things  she  did  and  said. 


270  HILDA. 

The  Simpsons  were  more  plastic.  Laura  had  been 
with  them  hardly  a  week  before  Mrs.  Simpson,  with 
touching  humility,  was  trying  to  remodel  her  spiritual 
nature  upon  the  form  so  fortuitously,  if  the  word  is 
admissible,  presented.  The  dear  lady  had  never  before 
realised,  by  her  own  statement,  how  terribly  her  re- 
ligious feelings  were  mingled  with  domestic  and  social 
considerations,  how  firmly  her  spiritual  edifice  was  based 
upon  the  things  of  this  world.  She  felt  that  her  soul 
was  honeycombed — that  was  her  word — with  conven- 
tionality and  false  standards,  and  she  made  confessions 
like  these  to  Laura,  sitting  in  the  girl's  bedroom  in 
the  twilight.  They  were  very  soothing,  these  con- 
fessions. Laura  would  take  Mrs.  Simpson's  thin, 
veined,  middle-aged  hand  in  hers  and  seem  to  charge 
herself  for  the  moment  with  the  responsibility  of  the 
elder  lady's  case.  She  did  not  attempt  to  conceal  her 
pity  or  even  her  contempt  for  Mrs.  Simpson's  state  of 
grace  :  she  made  short  work  of  special  services  and 
ladies'  Bible  classes.  The  world  was  white  with  har- 
vest, and  Mrs.  Simpson's  chief  activity  was  a  recreation 
society  for  shop-girls.  But  it  was  something,  it  was 
everything,  to  be  uneasy,  to  be  unsatisfied,  and  they 
would  uplift  themselves  in  prayer,  and  Laura  would 
find  words  of  such  touching  supplication  in  which  to 
represent  the  matter  that  the  burden  of  her  friend  and 
hostess  would  at  once  be  lessened  by  the  weight  of 
tears.  Mrs.  Simpson  had  never  wept  so  much  with- 
out perceived  cause  for  grief  as  since  Laura  arrived, 
and  this  alone  would  testify,  such  was  the  gentle  para- 
dox of  her  temperament,  how  much  she  enjoyed  Miss 
Filbert's  presence. 

Laura's  room  was  a  temple,  for  which  the  gardener 


HILDA. 


271 


daily  gave  \\p  his  choicest  blooms,  the  tenderest  inter- 
est watched  upon  her  comings  and  goings,  and  it  was 
the  joy  of  both  the  Simpsons  to  make  little  sacrifices 
for  her,  to  desert  their  beloved  vicar  on  a  Sunday 
evening,  for  instance,  and  accompany  her  to  the  fire- 
men's halls  and  skating  rinks  lent  to  the  publishing  of 
the  Word  in  the  only  manner  from  which  their  guest 
seemed  to  derive  benefit. 

With  all  this,  the  Simpsons  were  sometimes  troubled 
by  the  impression  that  they  could  not  claim  to  be 
making  their  angel  in  the  house  completely  happy. 
The  air,  the  garden,  the  victoria,  the  turbot  and  the 
whitebait,  these  were  all  that  had  been  vaunted,  and 
even  to  the  modesty  of  the  Simpsons  it  was  evident 
that  the  intimacy  they  offered  their  guest  should 
count  for  something.  There  were  other  friends,  too, 
young  friends  who  tried  to  teach  her  to  play  tennis, 
robust  and  silent  young  persons  who  threw  shy,  flushed 
glances  at  her  in  the  pauses  of  the  games,  and  wished 
supremely,  without  daring  to  hint  it,  that  she  would 
let  fall  some  word  about  her  wonderful  romance — a 
hope  ever  renewed,  ever  to  be  disappointed.  And 
physically  Laura  expanded  before  their  eyes.  The 
colour  that  came  into  her  cheek  gave  her  the  look  of 
a  person  painted  by  Bouguereau.  That  artist  would 
have  found  in  her  a  model  whom  he  could  have  repre- 
sented with  sincerity.  Yet  something  was  missing  to 
her,  her  friends  were  dimly  aware.  Her  desirable  sur- 
roundings kindled  her  to  but  a  perfunctory  interest  in 
life  :  the  electric  spark  was  absent.  Mrs.  Simpson  re- 
lied strategically  upon  the  wedding  preparations  and 
hurried  them  on,  announcing  in  May  that  it  was  quite 
time  to  think  about  various  garments  of  which  i.«ie 


2/2  HILDA. 

fashion  is  permanent,  but  the  issue  was  blank.  No 
ripple  stirred  the  placid  waters,  unless,  indeed,  we  take 
that  way  of  describing  Laura's  calm  demand,  when  the 
decision  lay  between  Valenciennes  and  Torchon  for 
under-bodies,  to  hear  whether  Mrs.  Simpson  had  ever 
known  Duff  Lindsay  to  be  anxious  about  his  eternal 
future.  The  girl  continued  to  give  forth  a  mere  pale 
reflection  of  her  circumstances,  and  Mrs.  Simpson  was 
forced  into  the  deprecation  that  perhaps  one  would 
hardly  call  her  a  joyous  Christian. 

But  for  the  Zenana  Mission  Society  this  impression 
of  Miss  Filbert  might  have  deepened.  The  committee 
of  that  body  was  almost  entirely  composed  of  Mrs. 
Simpson's  friends,  and  naturally  came  to  learn  much 
about  her  guest.  The  matter  was  vastly  considered, 
but  finally  Miss  Filbert  was  asked  to  speak  at  one  of 
the  monthly  meetings  the  ladies  held  among  them- 
selves to  keep  the  society  "in  touch  "  with  the  cause. 
Laura  brought  them,  as  one  would  imagine,  surpris- 
ingly in  touch.  She  made  pictures  for  them,  letting 
her  own  eyelashes  close  deliberately  while  they  stared. 
She  moved  these  ladies,  inspired  them,  carried  them 
away,  and  the  fact  that  none  of  them  found  them- 
selves able  afterward  to  quote  the  most  pathetic  pas- 
sages seemed  rather  to  add  to  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  they  described  the  address.  The  first  result 
was  a  shower  of  invitations  to  tea,  occasions  when 
Laura  was  easily  led  into  monologue.  Miss  Filbert 
became  a  cult  of  the  evangelistic  drawing-rooms,  and 
the  same  kind  of  forbearance  was  extended  to  her 
little  traces  of  earlier  social  experiences  as  is  offered, 
in  salons  of  another  sort,  to  the  eccentricities  of 
persons  of  genius.     Very  soon  other  applications  had 


HILDA. 


273 


to  be  met  and  considered,  and  Mrs.  Simpson  freely 
admitted  that  Laura  would  not  be  justified  in  refusing 
to  the  Methodists  and  Baptists  what  she  had  given 
elsewhere.  She  reasserted  her  platform  influence  over 
audiences  that  grew  constantly  larger,  and  her  world 
began  to  revolve  again  in  that  great  relation  to  the 
infinities  which  it  was  her  life  to  perceive  and  point 
out.  Mrs.  Simpson  charged  her  genially  with  having 
been  miserable  in  Plymouth  until  she  was  allowed  to 
do  good  in  lier  own  way,  and  saw  that  she  had  beef- 
tea  after  every  occasion  of  doing  it.  She  became,  in  a 
way,  of  public  character,  and  a  lady  journalist  sent  an 
account  of  her,  with  a  photograph,  to  a  well-known 
London  fashion-paper.  Perhaps  the  strongest  effect 
she  made  was  as  the  voice  of  the  Purity  Association, 
when  she  delivered  an  address,  in  the  picturesque 
costume  she  had  abandoned,  attacking  measures  con- 
templated by  Government  for  the  protection  of  the 
health  of  the  army  in  India.  This  was  reported  in  full 
in  the  local  paper,  and  Mr.  Simpson  sent  a  copy  to 
Duff  Lindsay,  who  received  it,  I  regret  to  say,  with  an 
unmistakable  imprecation.  But  Lau.a  rejoiced.  De- 
prived of  her  tambourine  she  nevertheless  rejoiced 
exceedingly. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 


The  Sister  Superior  had  a  long  upper  lip,  which  she 
was  in  the  habit  of  drawing  still  further  down  ;  it  gave 
her  an  air  of  great  diplomatic  caution,  almost  of  casuis- 
try. Her  face  was  pale  and  narrow.  She  had  eyes  that 
desired  to  be  very  penetrating,  and  a  flat  little  stoop- 
ing figure  with  a  suggestion  of  extreme  neutrality 
within  her  voluminous  draperies.  She  carried  about 
with  her  all  the  virtues  of  a  monastic  order,  patience 
was  written  upon  her,  and  repression,  discipline  and 
the  love  of  administration,  written  and  underlined,  so 
that  the  Anglican  Sister  whom  no  Pope  blessed  was 
more  priestly  in  her  personal  effect  than  any  Jesuit. 
It  was  diflficult  to  remember  that  she  had  begun  as  a 
woman  ;  she  was  now  a  somewhat  anaemic  formula 
making  for  righteousness.  Sister  Ann  Frances,  who 
in  her  turn  suggested  the  fat  capons  of  an  age  of 
friars  more  indulgent  to  the  flesh,  and  whose  speech 
was  of  the  crispest  in  this  world,  where  there  was  so 
much  to  do,  thought  poorly  of  the  executive  ability  of 
the  Sister  Superior,  and  resented  the  imposition,  as 
it  were,  of  the  long  upper  lip.  Out  of  this  arose  the 
only  irritations  that  vexed  the  energetic  flow  of  duty 
at  the  Baker  Institution,  slight  official  raspings  which 
the  Sister  Superior  immediately  laid  before  Heaven 
at  great  length.  She  did  it  with  publicity,  too, 
kneeling  on  the  chunam  floor  of  the  chapel  for  an 


HILDA. 


275 


hour  at  a  time  explaining  matters.  The  bureaucracy 
of  the  country  was  reflected  in  the  Baker  Institution  : 
it  seemed  to  Sister  Ann  Frances  that  her  superior 
officer  took  undue  advantage  of  her  privilege  of  direct 
communication  with  the  Supreme  Authority,  giving 
any  colour  she  liked  to  the  incident.  And  when  the 
Sister  Superior's  lumbago  came  on  in  direct  conse- 
quence of  the  cold  chunam,  the  annoyance  of  Sister 
Ann  Frances  was  naturally  not  lessened. 

There  were  twenty  or  thirty  of  them,  with  their 
little  white  caps  tied  close  under  their  chins,  their 
long  veils  and  their  girdled  black  robes.  Tliey  were 
the  most  self-sacrificing  women  in  Asia,  the  most 
devout,  the  most  useful.  Government  gave  hospitals 
and  doctors  into  their  hands;  they  took  the  whole 
charge  of  certain  schools.  They  differed  in  com- 
plexion, some  of  the  newly  arrived  being  delightfully 
fresh  and  pink  under  their  starched  bandeaux.  But 
they  were  all  official,  they  all  walked  discreetly  and 
directly  about  their  business,  with  a  jangle  of  keys  in 
the  folds  of  their  robes,  immensely  organised,  im- 
mensely under  orders.  Hilda,  when  she  had  time, 
had  the  keenest  satisfaction  in  contemplating  them. 
She  took  the  edge  off  the  fact  that  she  was  not  quite 
one,  in  aim  and  method,  with  these  dear  women,  as 
they  supposed  her  to  be,  with  the  reflection  that, 
after  all,  it  might  be  worth  while  to  work  out  a  solu- 
tion of  life  in  those  terms,  standing  aside  from  the 
world — the  world  was  troublesome — and  keeping  an  un- 
faltering eye  upon  the  pity  of  things,  an  unfaltering 
hand  at  its  assuagement.  It  was  simple  and  fine  and 
indisputable,  this  work  of  throwing  the  clear  shadow 
of  the  Cross  upon  the  muddy  sunlight  of  the  world. 


2;6  HILDA. 

It  carried  the  boon  of  finality  in  itself.  One  might  be 
stopped  and  put  away  at  any  moment,  and  nothing 
would  be  spoiled, broken,  unfinished;  and  it  absolutely 
barred  out  such  considerations  as  were  presented  by 
Hamilton  Bradley.  There  was  a  time  early  in  her 
probation  when  she  thought  seriously  that  if  it  were 
not  Stephen  Arnold  it  should  be  this. 

She  begged  to  be  put  on  hospital  work  and  was 
sent  for  her  indiscretion  to  teach  in  the  Orphanage 
for  Female  Children  of  British  Troops.  The  first 
duty  of  a  novice  was  to  be  free  of  preference,  to  obey 
without  a  sigh  of  choice.  On  the  third  day,  however, 
Sister  Ann  Frances,  supervising,  stopped  at  the  open 
schoolroom  door  to  hear  the  junior  female  orphans 
repeating  in  happy  chorus  after  their  instructress  the 
statement  that  seven  times  nine  were  fifty-six.  I 
think  Hilda  saw  Sister  Ann  Frances  in  the  door. 
That  couldn't  go  on,  even  in  the  name  of  discipline, 
and  Miss  Howe  was  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  chief 
nursing  Sister  at  the  General  Hospital  next  day. 
Sister  Ann  Frances  was  inclined  to  defend  Hilda's  im- 
perfect acquaintance  with  primary  arithmetic. 

"We  all  have  our  gifts,"  she  said.  "  Miss  Howe's 
is  not  the  multiplication  table,  but  neither  is  mine 
stage-acting."  At  which  the  upper  lip  lengthened 
further  into  an  upward-curving  smile,  and  the  Sister 
Superior  remarked  cautiously  that  she  hoped  Miss 
Howe  would  develop  one  for  making  bandages,  other- 
wise  

The  depth  of  what  was  unusual  in  Hilda's  relation 
with  Alicia  Livingstone — perhaps  it  has  been  plain 
that  they  were  not  quite  the  ordinary  feminine  liens 
— seems  to  me  to  be  sounded  in  the  tacit  acceptance 


HILDA. 


277 


of  Hilda's  novitiate  on  its  merits  that  fell  between  the 
two  women.  The  full  understanding  of  it  was  an 
abyss  between  them,  across  which  they  joined  hands, 
looking  elsewhere.  Even  in  the  surprise  of  Hilda's 
announcement  Alicia  had  the  instinct  to  glance  away, 
lest  her  eyes  should  betray  too  many  facts  that  bore 
upon  the  situation.  It  had  never  been  discussed,  but 
it  had  to  be  accepted  and  occasionally  referred  to  ; 
and  the  terms  of  acceptance  and  reference  made  no 
implication  of  Stephen  Arnold.  In  her  inmost  privacy 
Alicia  gazed  breathless  at  the  conception  as  a  whole  ; 
she  leaped  at  it,  and  caught  it,  and  held  it  to  look, 
with  a  feverish  comparison  of  possibilities.  It  was 
not  strange,  perhaps,  that  she  took  a  vivid  personal 
interest  in  the  essentials  that  enabled  one  to  execute 
a  flank  movement  like  Hilda's  nor  that  she  should 
conceive  the  first  of  them  to  be  that  one  must  come 
out  of  a  cab.  She  dismissed  that  impression  with 
indignation  as  ungenerously  cynical,  but  it  always 
came  back  for  redismissal.  It  did  not  interfere  in  the 
least,  however,  with  her  deliberate  invitations  to 
Stephen  to  come  to  10,  Middleton  street  on  afternoons 
or  evenings  when  Hilda  was  there.  She  was  like  one 
standing  denied  in  the  Street  of  Abundance ;  she  had 
an  avidity  of  the  eye  for  even  love's  reflection. 

That  was  a  little  later.  At  first  there  was  the 
transformation  to  lament,  the  loss,  the  break. 

"You  look,"  cried  Miss  Livingstone,  the  first  time 
Hilda  arrived  in  the  dress  of  the  novice,  a  kind  of 
understudy  of  the  Sisters'  black  and  white,  "you  look 
like  a  person  in  a  book,  full  of  salient  points,  and  yet 
made  so  simple  to  the  reader.  If  you  go  on  wearing 
those  things  I  shall  end  by  understanding  you  per- 
fectly." 


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PhotograDhic 


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2/8 


HILDA. 


"  };f  you  don't  understand  me,"  Hilda  said,  dropping 
into  the  corner  of  a  sofa,  "  Cela  queje  men  doute^  it's 
because  you  look  for  too  much  elaboration.  I  am  a 
simple  creature,  done  with  rather  a  broad  brush — voila 
tout !  " 

Nevertheless,  Miss  Livingstone's  was  a  happy  im- 
pression. The  neutrality  of  her  hospital  dress  left 
Hilda  in  a  manner  exposed  :  one  saw  in  a  special  way 
the  significance  of  lines  and  curves;  it  was  an  as- 
tonishingly vigourous  human  expression. 

Alicia  leaned  forward,  her  elbow  on  the  arm  of  her 
chair,  her  chin  tucked  into  her  palm,  and  looked  at  it. 
The  elbow  bent  itself  in  a  light  blue  muslin  sleeve  of 
extreme  elegance,  trimmed  with  lace.  The  colour 
found  a  wistful  echo  in  the  eyes  that  regarded  Miss 
Howe,  who  was  accustomed  to  the  look  and  met  it 
with  impenetrable  commonplace,  being  made  impa- 
tient by  nothing  in  this  world  so  much  as  by  futility, 
however  charming. 

"  Just  now,"  Alicia  said,  "  the  shadows  under  your 
eyes  are  brushed  too  deep." 

"  I  don't  believe  I  sleep  well  in  a  dormitory." 

"  Horrible  !  All  the  little  privacies  of  life — don't 
you  miss  them  ?  " 

"  I  never  had  them,  my  dear — I  never  had  them. 
Life  has  never  given  me  the  luxury  of  curtains — I 
don't  miss  them.  An  occasional  blind — a  closed  door 
— and  those  we  got  even  at  the  Institution.  The 
decencies  are  strictly  conserved,  believe  me." 

"  One  imagines  that  kind  of  place  is  always  clean." 

"  When  I  have  time  I  think  of  Number  Three,  Lai 
Behari's  Lane,  and  believe  myself  in  Paradise.  The 
repose  is  there,  the  angels  also — dear  commanding 


HILDA. 


27a 


things — and  a  perpetual  incense  of  cheap  soap.  And 
there  is  some  good  in  sleeping  in  a  row.  It  reminds 
one  that  after  all  one  is  very  like  other  women." 

"  It  wouldn't  convince  me  if  I  were  you.  And  how 
did  the  Sisters  receive  you — with  the  harp  and  the 
psaltery?" 

"That  was  rather,"  said  Hilda  gravely,  "what I  ex- 
pected. On  the  contrary,  they  snubbed  me — they 
really  did.  There  were  two  of  them.  I  said,  '  Rev- 
erend ladies,  please  be  a  little  kind.  Convents  are 
strange  to  me  ;  I  shall  probably  commit  horrible  sins 
without  knowing  it.  Give  me  your  absolution  in  ad- 
vance— at  least  your  blessing." 

"Hilda,  you  didn't!" 

"  It  is  delightful  to  observe  the  Mother  Abbess,  or 
whatever  she  is,  disguising  the  fact  that  she  takes  any 
interest  in  me.     Such  diplomacy — funny  old  thing." 

"  They  must  be  devoured  with  curiosity !  " 

"Well,  they  ask  no  questions.  One  sees  an  ever- 
lasting finger  on  the  lip.  It's  a  little  boring.  One 
feels  inclined  to  speak  up  and  say,  *  Mesdames,  enteiu 
dez — it  isn't  so  bad  as  you  think.*  But  then  their 
fingers  would  go  into  their  ears." 

"And  the  rules,  Hilda?  I  can't  imagine  you, some- 
how, under  rules." 

"  I  am  attached  to  the  rules ;  I  think  about  them  all 
day  long.  They  make  the  thing  simple  and — possible. 
It  is  a  little  like  living  for  the  first  time  in  a  house  all 
right  angles  after — after  a  life-long  voyage  in  a  small 
boat." 

"  Isn't  the  house  rather  empty  ?  ** 

"  Oh,  well ! " 

Alicia  put  out  her  hand  and  tucked  an  irrelevant 


2So 


HILDA. 


bit  of  lace  into  Hilda  s  bosom.  "  I  can  tell  you  who 
is  interested,"  she  cried.  "The  Archdeacon — the 
Archdeacon  and  Mrs.  Barberry,  They  both  dined 
here  last  night ;  and  you  lasted  from  the  fish  to  the 
pudding.  I  got  so  bored  with  you,  my  dear,  in  your 
new  capacity." 

A  new  ray  of  happiness  came  into  the  smile  of  the 
novice.  "  What  did  they  say  ?  Do  tell  me  what  they 
said." 

"There  was  a  difference  of  opinion.  The  Arch- 
deacon held  that  with  God  all  things  were  possible. 
He  used  an  expression  more  suitable  to  a  dinner-party, 
but  I  think  that  is  what  he  meant.  Mrs.  Barberry 
thought  it  wouldn't  last.  Mrs.  Barberry  was  very 
cynical.  She  said  anyone  could  see  that  you  were 
as  emotional  as  ever  you  could  be." 

The  eyes  of  the  two  women  met  and  they  laughed 
frankly.  A  sense  of  expansion  came  between  them, 
in  which  for  an  instant  they  were  silent. 

"  Tell  me  about  the  hospital,"  Alicia  said  presently. 

"  Ah,  the  hospital !  "  Hilda's  face  changed.  There 
came  into  her  eyes  the  moved  look  that  always  waked 
a  thrill  in  Alicia  Livingstone,  as  if  she  were  suddenly 
aware  that  she  had  stepped  upon  ground  where  feet 
like  hers  passed  seldom. 

"There  is  nothing  to  tell  you  that  is  not — sad. 
Such  odds  and  ends  of  life,  thrown  together ! " 

"  Have  you  had  any  experiences  yet  ?  " 

Hilda  stared  for  a  moment  absently  in  front  of  her, 
and  then  turned  her  head  aside  to  answer  as  if  she 
closed  her  eyes  on  something. 

"Experiences?  Delightful  Alicia,  speaking  your 
language,  no.     You  are  thinking  of  the  resident  sur- 


y 


HILDA.  281 

geon,  the  medical  student,  the  interesting  patient. 
My  resident  surgeon  is  fifty  years  old  ;  the  medical 
student  is  a  Bengali  in  white  cotton  and  patent- 
leather  shoes.  I  am  occupied  in  a  ward  full  of  deck 
hands.  For  these  I  hold  the  bandage  and  the  basin  ; 
they  are  hardly  aware  of  me." 

"  You  are  sure  to  have  them,"  Alicia  said.  "  They 
crop  up  wherever  you  go  in  this  world,  either  before 
you  or  behind  you." 

Hilda  fixed  her  eyes  attentively  upon  her  compan- 
ion. "  Sometimes,"  she  said,  "  you  say  things  that  are 
extremely  true  in  their  general  bearing.  A  fortune- 
teller with  cards  gives  one  the  same  shock  of  surprise. 
Well,  let  me  tell  you,  I  have  been  promoted  to  tem- 
peratures. I  took  thirty-five  to-day.  Next  week  I 
am  to  make  poultices ;  the  week  after  baths  and 
fomentations." 

"  What  are  the  others Hke — the  other  novices?" 

**  Nearly  all  Eurasians,  one  native,  a  Hindu  widow 
— the  Sisters  are  almost  demonstrative  to  her — and 
one  or  two  local  European  girls ;  the  Commissariat- 
Sergeant  class,  I  should  think." 

"  They  don't  sound  attractive  and  I  am  glad.  You 
will  depend  the  more  upon  me." 

Hilda  looked  thoughtfully  at  Miss  Livingstone. 
"  I  will  depend,"  she  said,  "  a  good  deal  upon  you." 

It  was  Alicia's  fate  to  meet  the  Archdeacon  again 
that  evening  at  dinner.  "  And  is  she  really  throwing 
her  heart  into  the  work  ?  "  asked  thai:  dignitary,  re- 
ferring to  Miss  Howe. 

"  Oh,  I  think  so,"  Alicia  said  ;  "  Yes." 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 


The  labours  of  the  Baker  Institution  and  of  the 
Clarke  Mission  were  very  different  in  scope,  so  much 
so  that  if  they  had  been  secular  bodies  working  for 
profit  there  would  have  been  hardly  a  point  of  contact 
between  them.  As  it  was,  they  made  one,  drawing 
together  in  affiliation  for  the  comfort  of  mutual  sup- 
port in  a  heathen  country  where  all  the  other  English- 
men wrote  reports,  drilled  troops,  or  played  polo,  with 
all  the  other  Englishwomen  in  the  corresponding  fe- 
male parts.  Doubtless  the  little  communities  prayed 
for  each  other.  One  may  imagine,  not  profanely, 
their  petitions  rising  on  either  side  of  the  heedless, 
multitudinous,  idolatrous  city,  and  meeting  at  some 
point  in  the  purer  air  above  the  yellow  dust-haze.  I 
am  not  aware  that  they  held  any  other  mutual  duty 
or  privilege,  but  this  bond  was  known  and  enabled 
people  whose  conscience  pricked  them  in  that  direction 
to  give  little  garden  teas  to  which  they  invited  Clarke 
Brothers  and  Baker  Sisters,  secure  in  doing  a  benevo- 
lent thing  and  at  the  same  time  embarrassing  nobody, 
except,  possibly,  the  Archdeacon,  who  was  officially 
exposed  to  being  asked  as  well  and  had  no  right  to 
complain.  The  affiliation  was  thus  a  so-ial  conven- 
ience, since  it  is  unlikely  that  without  it  anybody 
would  have  hit  upon  so  ingenious  a  way  of  killing,  as 
it  were,  a  Baker  Sister  and  a  Clarke  Brother  with  one 
stone.     It  is  not  surprising  that  this  degree  of  intelli- 


HILDA.  283 

gence  should  fail  to  see  the  profound  official  difference 
between  Baker  Sisters  and  Baker  Novices.  As  the 
Sister  Superior  said,  it  did  not  seem  to  occur  to  peo- 
ple that  there  could  be,  in  connection  with  a  religious 
body,  such  words  as  discipline  and  subordination, 
which  were  certainly  made  ridiculous  for  the  time  be- 
ing, where  she  and  Sister  Ann  Frances  were  asked  to 
eat  ices  on  the  same  terms  with  Miss  Hilda  Howe.  It 
must  have  been  more  than  ever  painful  to  these  ladies, 
regarded  from  the  official  point  of  view,  when  it  be- 
came plain,  as  it  usually  did,  that  the  interest  of  the 
afternoon  centred  in  Miss  Howe,  whether  or  not  the 
Archdeacon  happened  to  be  present.  Their  displeas- 
ure was  so  clear,  after  the  first  occasion,  that  Hilda 
felt  obliged,  when  the  next  one  came,  to  fall  back  on 
her  original  talent,  and  ate  her  ice  abashed  and  silent, 
speaking  only  when  she  was  spoken  to,  and  then  in 
short  words  and  long  hesitations.  Thereupon  the 
Sisters  were  of  opinion  that,  after  all,  poor  Miss  Howe 
could  not  help  her  unenviable  note — she  was  perhaps 
more  to  be  pitied  on  account  of  it  than  anything 
else.  It  came  to  this,  that  Sister  Ann  Frances  even 
had  an  exhibitor's  pride  in  her,  and  Hilda  knew  the 
sensations  of  a  barbarian  female  captive  in  the  bonds 
of  the  Christians.  But  she  could  not  afford  to  risk 
being  cut  off  from  those  little  garden  teas.  All  told, 
they  were  few ;  ladies  disturbed  by  ideas  of  social  du- 
ties toward  missionaries  being  so  uncommon. 

She  told  Stephen  so,  frankly,  one  afternoon  when  he 
charged  her  with  being  so  unlike  herself,  and  he  heard 
her  explanation  with  a  gravity  which  contained  an  ele- 
ment of  satisfaction.  "  It  is,  of  course,  a  pleasure  to 
us  to  meet,"  he  said,  "  a  pleasure  to  us  both."    That 


284 


HILDA. 


was  part  of  the  satisfaction,  that  he  could  meet  her 
candour  with  the  same  openness.  He  was  not  even 
afraid  to  mention  to  her  the  stimulus  she  gave  him  al- 
ways and  his  difficulty  in  defining  it,  and  once  he  told 
her  how,  after  a  talk  with  her,  he  had  lain  awake  until 
the  small  hours  unable  to  stop  his  excited  rush  of 
thought.  He  added  that  he  was  now  personally  arid 
selfishly  glad  she  had  chosen  as  she  did  three  months 
before ;  it  made  a  difference  to  him,  her  being  in  Cal- 
cutta, a  sensible  and  material  difference.  He  had 
better  hope  and  heart  in  his  work.  It  was  the  last 
luxury  he  would  ever  have  dreamed  of  allowing  him- 
self, a  woman  friend ;  but  since  life  had  brought  it  in 
the  oddest  way,  the  boon  should  be  met  with  no 
grudging  of  gratitude.  A  kind  of  sedate  cheerfulness 
crept  into  his  manner  which  was  new  to  him  ;  he  went 
about  his  duties  with  the  look  of  a  man  to  whom  life 
had  dictated  its  terms  and  who  found  them  acceptable. 
His  blood  might  have  received  some  mysterious  chemi- 
cal complement,  so  much  was  his  eye  clearer,  his  voice 
firmer,  and  the  things  he  found  to  say  more  decisive. 
Nor  did  any  consideration  of  their  relations  disturb 
him.  He  never  thought  of  the  oxygen  in  the  air  he 
breathed,  and  he  seldom  thought  of  Hilda. 

They  were  walking  toward  the  Institution  together 
the  day  he  explained  to  her  his  gratification  that  she 
had  elected  to  remain.  Sister  Ann  Frances  and  Sister 
Margaret  led;  Arnold  and  Hilda  came  behind.  He 
had  an  errand  to  the  Sister  Superior — he  would  go  all 
the  way.  It  was  late  in  May  and  late  in  the  afternoon  ; 
all  the  tree-tops  on  the  Maidan  were  bent  under  the 
sweep  of  the  south  wind,  blowing  a  caressing  coolness 
from  the  sea.     It  spread  fragrances  about  and  shook 


HILDA. 


285 


down  blossoms  from  the  gold-mohur  trees.  One  could 
see  nothing  anywhere  so  red  and  yellow  as  they  were 
except  the  long  coat  of  a  Government  messenger,  a 
point  of  scarlet  moving  in  the  perspective  of  a  dusty 
road.  The  spreading  acres  of  turf  were  baked  to  every 
earth  colour.  Wherever  a  pine  dropped  needles  and  an 
old  woman  swept  them  up,  a  trail  of  dust  ran  curling 
along  the  ground  like  smoke.  The  little  party  was 
unusual  in  walking; ;  glances  of  uncomprehending  pity 
were  cast  at  them  from  victorias  and  landaus  that 
rolled  past.  Even  the  convalescent  British  soldiers 
facing  each  other  in  the  clumsy  drab  cart  drawn  by 
humped  bullocks,  and  marked  Garrison  Dispensary^ 
stared  at  the  black  skirts  so  near  the  powder  of  the 
road.  The  Sisters  in  front  walked  with  their  heads 
slighdy  bent  toward  one  another  ;  they  seemed  to  be 
consulting.  Hilda  reflected,  looking  at  them,  that 
they  always  seemed  to  be  consulting:  it  was  the 
normal  attitude  of  that  long  black  veil  that  flowed 
behind, 

Arnold  walked  beside  his  companion,  his  hands 
loosely  clasped  behind  him,  with  the  air  of  semi-de- 
tachment that  young  clergymen  sometimes  have  with 
their  wives.  Whether  it  was  that,  or  the  trace  of 
custom  his  satisfaction  carried,  the  casual  glance  might 
easily  have  taken  them  for  a  married  pair. 

"  There  is  a  kind  of  folly  and  stupidity  in  saying 
it,"  he  said,  "  but  you  have  done — you  do — a  great 
deal  for  me." 

She  turned  her  tired  face  upon  him  with  a  wistful, 
measuring  look.  It  searched  his  face  for  an  instant 
and  came  back  baffled.  Arnold  spoke  with  so  much 
kindness,  so  much  appreciation. 

"  Very  little,"  she  said  mechanically,  looking  at  the 


286 


HILDA. 


fresh   footprints  of    Sister  Ann  Frances  and  Sister 
Margaret. 

'•  But  I  know.  And  can't  you  tell  me — it  would 
make  me  so  very  happy — that  I  have  done  something 
for  you  too — something  that  you  value  ?  " 

Hilda's  eyes  lightened  curiously,  reverie  came  into 
them,  and  a  smile.  She  answered  as  if  she  spoke  to 
herself,  "  I  should  not  know  how  to  tell  you." 

Then,  scenting  wonder  in  him,  she  added, "  You  were 
thinking  of  something — in  particular." 

"  You  have  sometimes  made  me  believe,"  Stephen 
returned,  "  that  I  may  account  myself,  under  God,  the 
accident  which  induced  you  to  take  up  your  blessed 
work.     I  was  thinking  of  that." 

"  Oh,"  she  said,  "  of  that ! "  and  seemed  to  take 
refuge  in  silence. 

"  Yes,"  Arnold  said,  with  infinite  gentleness. 

"  Oh,  you  were  profoundly  the  cause  !  I  might  say 
you  are,  for  without  you  I  doubt  whether  I  should 
have  the — courage " 

"  Oh,  no  !  Oh,  no  !  He  who  inspired  you  in  the 
beginning  will  sustain  you  to  the  end.  Think  that. 
Believe  that." 

"  Will  He  ?  "  Her  voice  was  neutral,  as  if  it  would 
not  betray  too  much,  but  there  was  a  listlessness  that 
spoke  louder  in  the  bend  of  her  head,  the  droop  of 
her  shoulder. 

"  For  you  perhaps,"  Arnold  said,  thoughtfully, 
"  there  is  only  one  assurance  of  it — the  satisfaction 
your  vocation  brings  you  now.  That  will  broaden 
and  increase,"  he  went  on,  almost  with  buoyancy, 
"  growing  more  and  more  your  supreme  good  as  the 
years  go  on." 

"  How  much  you'give  me  credit  for !  " 

/ 


HILDA. 


287 


"  Not  nearly  enough — not  nearly.  Who  is  there 
like  you  ?"  he  demanded,  simply. 

His  words  seemed  a  baptism.  She  lifted  up  her 
face  after  them,  and  the  trace  of  them  was  on  her  eyes 
and  lips.  "  I  have  passed  two  examinations,  at  all 
events,"  she  informed  him,  with  sudden  gaiety,  "  and 
Sister  Ann  Frances  says  that  in  two  or  three  months 
I  shall  probably  get  through  the  others.  Sister  Ann 
Frances  thinks  me  more  intelligent  than  might  be 
expected.  And  if  I  do  pass  those  examinations  I 
shall  be  what  they  call  a  quick-time  probationer.  I 
shall  have  got  it  over  in  six  months.  Do  you  think," 
she  asked,  as  if  to  please  herself,  "  that  six  months 
will  be  long  enough  ?  " 

"  It  depends.     There  is  so  much  to  consider." 

"Yes — it  depends.  Sometimes  I  think  it  will  be, 
but  oftener  I  think  it  will  take  longer." 

"  I  should  be  inclined  to  leave  it  entirely  with  the 
Sisters." 

"  I  am  so  undisciplined,"  murmured  Hilda.  "  I 
fear  I  shall  cling  to  my  own  opinion.  Now  we  must 
overtake  the  others  and  you  must  walk  the  rest  of  the 
way  with  Sister  Ann — no,  Sister  Margaret,  she  is 
senior." 

"  I  don't  at  all  see  the  necessity,"  Stephen  pro- 
tested. He  was  wilful  and  wayward ;  he  adopted  a 
privileged  air,  and  she  scolded  him.  In  their  dispute 
they  laughed  so  imprudently  that  Sister  Ann  Frances 
turned  her  draped  head  to  look  back  at  them.  Then 
they  quickened  their  steps  and  joined  the  elder  ladies, 
and  Stephen  walked  with  Sister  Margaret  to  the  door 
of  the  Institution.  She  mentioned  to  the  Sister 
Superior  afterward  that  young  Mr.  Arnold  was  really 
a  delightful  conversationalist. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

They  talked  a  great  deal  in  Plymouth  about  the 
way  the  time  was  passing  in  Calcutta  during  those  last 
three  months  before  Laura  should  return,  the  months 
of  the  rains.     "Now,"  said  Mrs.  Simpson,   early  in 
July,    "it   will    be    pouring   every    day,   with    great 
patches  of  the  Maidan  under  water,  and   rivers,  my 
dear,  rivers^  in  the  back  streets,"  and  Laura  had  a 
reminiscence  about  how,  exactly  at  that  time,  a  green 
mould  used  to  spread  itself  fresh  every  morning  on 
the  matting  under  her  bed  in  Bentinck  street.     Later 
on  they  would  agree  that  perhaps  by  this  time  there 
was  a  "  break  in  the  rains,"  and    that  nothing  in  the 
world  was  so  trying  as  a  break  in  the  rains,  the  sun 
grilling    down   and    drawing  up    steam    from   every 
puddle.      In    September,  things,   they    remembered, 
would  be  at  their  very  worst  and   most   depressing : 
one  had  hardly  the  energy  to  lift  a  finger  in  Septem- 
ber.    Mrs.  Simpson  looked  back  upon  the  discomfort 
she  had  endured  in  Bengal  at  this  time  of  year  with  a 
kind   of  regret   that   it  was  irretrievably  over;    she 
lingered  upon  a  severe  illness  which  had  been  part  of 
the  experience.     She   seemed  to   think   that  with  a 
little  judicious  management  she  might   have  spent 
more   time   in    that    climate    and    less   in   England. 
There  was  in  her  tone  a  suggestion  of  gentle  envy  of 
Laura,  going  forth   to  these  dismal  conditions  with 


HILDA. 


289 


her  young  life  in  her  hands,  all  tricked  out  for  the 
sacrifice,  which  left  Duf!  Lindsay  and  his  white  and 
gold  drawing-room  entirely  out  of  consideration.  Any 
sacrifice  to  Mrs.  Simpson  was  alluring;  she  would  be 
killed  all  day  long,  in  a  manner,  for  its  own  sake. 

The  victim  had  taken  her  passage  early  in  October, 
and  during  the  first  week  of  that  month  Plymouth 
gathered  itself  into  meetings  to  bid  her  farewell.  A 
curiously  sacred  character  had  fastened  itself  upon 
her.  It  was  not  in  the  least  realised  that  she  was  going 
out  to  be  married  to  an  altogether  secular  young 
broker  moving  in  fashionable  circles  in  one  of  the 
gayest  cities  in  the  world.  One  or  two  reverend  per- 
sons, in  the  course  of  commending  their  young 
sister  to  the  protection  of  the  Almighty  in  her  ap- 
proaching separation  from  the  dear  friends  who  sur- 
rounded her  in  Plymouth,  made  references  implying 
that  her  labours  would  continue  to  the  glory  of  God, 
taking  it  as  a  matter  of  course.  Miss  Filbert  was  by 
this  time  very  much  impregnated  with  the  idea  that 
they  would,  she  did  not  know  precisely  how,  but  that 
would  open  itself  out.  Duff  had  long  been  assimilated 
as  part  of  the  programme.  All  that  money  and 
humility  could  contribute  should  be  forthcoming  from 
him  ;  she  had  a  familiar  dream  of  him  as  her  standard-  > 
bearer,  undistinguished  but  for  ever  safe. 

Yet  it  was  with  qualified  approval  that  Mrs.  Simp- 
son, amid  the  confusion  of  the  Coromandets  prepara- 
tions for  departure  at  London  Docks,  heard  the  familiar 
strains  of  the  Salvation  Army  rising  aft.  Laura  im- 
mediately cried,  "  I  shall  have  friends  among  the  pas- 
sengers," and  Mrs.  Simpson  so  far  forgot  herself  as  to 
say,  "  Yes,  if  they  are  nice."    The  ladies  were  sitting 


290 


HILDA. 


on  deck  beside  the  pile  of  Laura's  very  superior  cabin 
luggage.  Mrs.  Simpson  glanced  at  it  as  if  it  offered  a 
kind  of  corroboration  of  the  necessity  of  their  being 
nice.  "  There  are  always  a  few  delightful  Christian 
people,  if  one  takes  the  trouble  to  find  them  out,  at 
this  end  of  the  ship,"  she  said,  defensively.  "  I  have 
never  failed  to  find  it  so." 

"  I  don't  think  much  of  Christians  who  are  so  hard 
to  discover,"  Laura  said,  with  decision,  and  Mrs. 
Simpson,  rebuked,  thought  of  the  mischievous  nature 
of  class  prejudices.  Laura  herself — had  she  not  been 
drawn  from  what  one  might  call  distinctly  the  other 
end  of  the  ship  ;  and  who,  among  those  who  vaunted 
themselves  ladies  and  gentlemen,  could  compare  with 
Laura  ?  The  idea  that  she  had  shown  a  want  of  sym- 
pathy with  those  dear  people  who  were  so  strenuously 
calling  down  a  blessing  on  the  Corotnandel  somewhere 
behind  the  smoke-stacks,  embittered  poor  Mrs.  Simp- 
son's remaining  tears  of  farewell,  and  when  the  bell 
rang  the  signal  for  the  last  good-bye  she  embraced  her 
young  friend  with  the  fervent  request,  "Do  make 
friends  with  them,  dear  one — make  friends  with  them 
at  once  ; "  and  Laura  said,  "  If  they  will  make  friends 
with  me." 

By  the  time  the  ship  had  well  got  her  nose  down 
the  coast  of  Spain,  Miss  Filbert  had  created  her  at- 
mosphere and  moved  about  in  it  from  end  to  end  of 
the  quarter-deck.  It  was  a  recognisable  thing,  her 
atmosphere;  one  never  knew  when  it  would  discharge  a 
question  relating  to  eternity.  And  persons  unprepared 
to  give  satisfaction  upon  this  point — one  fears  there 
are  always  many  on  a  ship  bound  east  of  Suez — found 
it  blighting.    They  moved  their  long  chairs  out  of  the 


HILDA. 


291 


way,  they  turned  pointedly  indifferent  backs,  the  lady 
who  shared  Miss  Filbert's  cabin — she  belonged  to  a 
smart  cavalry  regiment  at  Mhow — went  about  saying 
things  with  a  distinct  edge.  Miss  Filbert  exhausted 
all  the  means.  She  attempted  to  hold  a  meeting  for- 
ward of  the  smoking  cabin,  standing  for  elevation  on 
one  of  the  ship's  quoit  buckets  to  preach,  but  with 
this  the  Captain  was  reluctantly  compelled  to  inter- 
fere on  behalf  of  the  whist-players  inside.  In  the 
evening  after  dinner  she  established  herself  in  a 
sheltered  corner  and  sang.  Her  recovered  voice  lifted 
itself  with  infinite  pathetic  sweetness  in  songs  about 
the  poverty  of  the  world  and  the  riches  of  Heaven. 
The  notes  mingled  with  the  churning  of  the  screw  and 
fell  in  the  darkness  beyond  the  ship's  lights  abroad 
upon  the  sea.  The  other  passengers  listened  aloof. 
The  Coromandel  was  crowded,  but  you  could  have 
drawn  a  wide  circle  round  her  chair.  On  the  morning 
of  the  fourth  day  out — she  had  not  felt  quite  well 
enough  for  adventures  before — she  found  her  way  to 
the  second-class  saloon,  being  no  doubt  fully  justified 
of  her  conscience  in  abandoning  the  first  to  the  flip- 
pancies of  its  preference. 

In  the  second-class  end  the  tone  was  certainly  more 
like  that  of  Plymouth.  Laura  had  a  grateful  sense  of 
this  in  coming,  almost  at  once,  upon  a  little  group 
gathered  together  for  praise  and  prayer,  of  which  four 
or  five  persons  of  both  sexes,  labelled  "  S.  A.,"  natur- 
ally formed  the  centre.  They  were  not  only  praying 
and  praising  without  discouragement,  they  had  at- 
tracted several  other  people  who  had  brought  their 
chairs  into  near  and  friendly  relation,  and  even  joined 
sometimes  in  the  chorus  of  the  hymns.    There  was  a 


292 


HILDA. 


woman  in  mourning  who  cried  a  good  deal — her  tears 
seemed  to  refresh  the  Salvationists  and  inspired  them 
to  louder  and  more  cheerful  efforts.  There  was  a  man 
in  a  wide,  soft  felt  hat  with  the  malaria  of  the  Terai  in 
the  hollows  under  his  eyes;  there  was  a  Church 
Missionary  with  an  air  of  charity  and  forbearance,  and 
the  bushy-eyed  colonel  of  a  native  regiment,  looking 
vigilant  against  ridicule,  with  his  wife,  whose  round, 
red  little  face  continually  waxed  and  waned  in  a  smile 
of  true  contentment.  It  was  not  till  later  that  Laura 
came  to  know  them  all  so  very  well,  but  her  eye 
rested  on  them  one  after  another  with  approval  as 
she  drew  near.  Without  pausing  in  his  chant — it 
happened  to  be  one  of  triumph — without  even  looking 
at  her,  the  leader  indicated  an  empty  chair.  It  was 
his  own  chair.  "  Colonel  Markin,  S.  A.,"  was  printed 
in  black  letters  on  its  striped  canvas  back;  Laura 
noticed  that. 

After  it  was  over,  the  little  gathering.  Colonel  Mar- 
kin  specially  distinguished  her.  He  did  it  delicately. 
"  I  hope  you  won't  mind  my  expressin'  my  thanks  for 
the  help  you  gave  us  in  the  singin',"  he  said.  "  Such 
a  voice  I've  seldom  had  the  pleasure  to  join  with. 
May  I  ask  where  you  got  it  trained  ?  " 

He  was  a  narrow-chested  man  with  longish  sandy 
hair  and  thin  features.  His  eyes  were  large,  blue,  and 
protruding,  his  forehead  very  high  and  white.  There 
was  a  pinkness  about  the  root  of  his  nose  and  a 
scanty  yellow  moustache  upon  his  upper  lip,  while  his 
chin  was  partly  hidden  by  a  beard  equally  scanty  and 
even  more  yellow.  He  had  extremely  long  white 
hands :  one  could  not  help  observing  them  as  they 
clasped  his  book  of  devotion. 


HILDA.  293 

Laura  looked  at  him  with  profound  appreciation  of 
these  details.  She  knew  Colonel  Markin  by  reputa- 
tion— he  had  done  a  great  work  among  the  Cingalese. 
"  It  was  trained,"  she  said,  casting  down  her  eyes,  "  on 
the  battlefields  of  our  Army." 

Colonel  Markin  attempted  to  straighten  his  shoulders 
and  to  stiffen  his  chin.  He  seemed  vaguely  aware  of 
a  military  tradition  which  might  make  it  necessaiy  for 
him,  as  a  very  senior  officer  indeed,  to  say  something. 
But  the  impression  was  transitory.  Instead  of  using 
any  rigour  he  held  out  his  hand.  Laura  took  it  rever- 
ently, and  the  bones  shut  up,  like  the  sticks  of  a  fan, 
in  her  grasp.  "  Welcome,  comrade  !  "  he  said,  and 
there  was  a  pause,  as  there  should  be  after  such  an 
apostrophe. 

"  When  you  came  among  us  this  afternoon,"  Colonel 
Markin  resumed,  "  I  noticed  you.  There  was  some- 
thing about  the  way  y  i  put  your  hand  over  your 
eyes  when  I  addressed  our  Heavenly  Father  in  prayer 
that  spoke  to  me.  It  spoke  to  me  and  said,  *  Here  we 
have  a  soul  that  knows  what  salvation  means — there's 
no  doubt  about  that.'  Then  when  you  raised  a 
Hallelujah,  I  said  to  myself,  'That's  got  the  right  ring 
to  it.'     And  so  you're  a  sister  in  arms !  " 

**  I  was,"  Laura  murmured. 

"  You  was — you  were.  Well,  well — I  want  to  hear 
all  about  it.  It  is  now,"  continued  Colonel  Markin, 
as  two  bells  struck  and  a  steward  passed  them  with  a 
bugle,  '*  the  hour  for  our  dinner,  and  I  suppose  that 
you,  too,"  he  bent  his  head  respectfully  toward  the 
other  half  of  the  ship,  "  partake  of  some  meal  at  this 
time.  But  if  you  v/ill  seek  us  out  again  at  the  meet- 
ing between  four  and  five  I  shall  be  at  your  service 


294 


HILDA. 


afterward,  -^nd  pleased,"  he  took  her  hand  again, 
^'pleased  to  see  you." 

Laura  went  back  to  the  evening  meeting,  and  after 
that  missed  none  of  these  privileges.  In  due  course 
she  was  asked  to  address  it,  and  then  her  position  be- 
came enviable  from  all  points  of  view,  for  people  who 
did  not  draw  up  their  chairs  and  admire  her  inspira- 
tions sat  at  a  distance  and  admired  her  clothes.  Very 
soon,  at  her  special  request,  she  was  allowed  to  resign 
her  original  place  at  the  table  and  take  a  revolving 
chair  at  the  nine  o'clock  breakfast,  one  o'clock  dinner, 
and  six  o'clock  tea  which  sustained  the  second  saloon. 
Daily  ascending  the  companion-ladder  to  the  main- 
deck  aft,  she  gradually  faded  from  cognisance  forward. 
There  they  lay  back  in  their  long  cabin  chairs  and 
sipped  their  long  drinks,  and  with  neutral  eyes  and  lips 
they  let  the  blessing  go. 

In  the  intervals  between  the  exercises  Miss  Filbert 
came  and  went  in  the  cabin  of  three  young  Salvation- 
ists of  her  own  sex.  They  could  always  make  room 
for  her,  difficult  as  it  may  appear ;  she  held  for  them|an 
indefinite  store  of  fascination.  Laura  would  extend 
herself  on  a  top  berth  beside  the  round-eyed  Norwe- 
gian to  whom  it  belonged,  with  the  cropped  head  of 
the  owner  pillowed  on  her  sisterly  arm,  and  thus  they 
passed  hours,  discussing  conversions  as  medical  stu- 
dents might  discuss  cases,  relating,  comparing.  They 
talked  a  great  deal  about  Colonel  Markin.  They  said 
it  was  a  beautiful  life.  More  beautiful,  if  possible,  had 
been  the  life  of  Mrs.  Markin,  who  was  his  second  wife, 
and  who  had  been  "  promoted  to  glory  "  six  months 
before.  She  had  gained  promotion  through  jungle 
fever,  which  had  carried  her  off  in  three  days.    The 


HILDA. 


295 


first  Mrs.  Markin  had  died  of  drink — that  was  what 
had  sent  the  Colonel  into  the  Army,  she,  the  first  Mrs. 
Markin,  having  willed  her  property  avay  from  him. 
Colonel  Markin  had  often  rejoiced  publicly  that  the 
lady  had  been  of  this  disposition,  the  results  to  him 
had  been  so  blessed.  Apparently  he  spoke  without 
reserve  of  his  domestic  affairs  in  connection  with  his 
spiritual  experiences,  using  both  the  Mrs.  Markins 
when  it  was  desirable  as  "  illustrations."  The  five  had 
reached  this  degree  of  intimacy  by  the  time  the  Coro- 
mandel  was  nearing  Port  Said,  and  every  day  the  hem- 
ispheres of  sea  and  sky  they  watched  through  the 
port-hole  above  the  Norwegian  girl's  berth  grew  bluer. 
From  the  first  Colonel  Markin  had  urged  Miss  Fil- 
bert's immediate  return  to  the  Army.  He  found  her 
sympathetic  to  the  idea,  willing,  indeed,  to  embrace  it 
with  open  arms,  but  there  were  difficulties.  Mr. 
Lindsay,  as  a  difficulty,  was  almost  inseparable  to 
anything  like  a  prompt  step  in  that  direction.  Colonel 
Markin  admitted  it  himself.  He  was  bound  to  admit 
it,  he  said,  but  nothing,  since  he  joined  the  Army,  had 
ever  been  so  painful  to  him.  "  I  wish  I  could  deny 
it,"  he  said  with  frankness,  "  but  there  is  no  doubt 
that  for  the  present  your  first  duty  is  toward  your 
gentleman,  toward  him  who  placed  that  ring  upon 
your  finger."  There  was  no  sarcasm  in  his  describing 
Lindsay  as  a  gentleman  ;  he  used  the  term  in  a  kind 
of  extra  special  sense,  where  a  person  less  accustomed 
to  polite  usages  might  have  spoken  of  Laura's  young 
man.  "  But  remember,  my  child,"  he  continued,  "  it 
is  only  your  poor  vile  body  that  is  yours  to  dispose  of. 
Your  soul  belongs  to  God  Almighty,  and  no  earthly 
husband,  especially  as  you  say  he  is  still  in  his  sins,  is 


296 


HILDA. 


going  to  have  the  right  to  interfere."  This  may  seem 
vague  as  the  statement  of  a  position,  but  Laura  found 
it  immensely  fortifying.  Tliat  and  similar  arguments 
built  her  up  in  her  determination  to  take  up  what 
Colonel  Markin  called  her  life-work  again  at  the 
earliest  opportunity.  She  had  forfeited  her  rank,  that 
she  accepted  humbly  as  a  proper  punishment,  ardently 
hoping  it  would  be  found  sufficient.  She  would  go 
back  as  a  private,  take  her  place  in  the  ranks,  and 
nothing  in  her  married  life  should  interfere  with  the 
things  that  cried  out  to  be  done  in  Bentinck  street. 
Somehow  she  had  less  hope  of  securing  Lindsay  as  a 
spiritual  companion  in  arms  since  she  had  confided 
the  affair  to  Colonel  Markin.  As  he  said,  they  must 
hope  for  the  best,  but  he  could  not  help  admitting 
that  he  took  a  gloomy  view  of  Lindsay. 

"  Once  he  has  secured  you,"  the  Colonel  said,  with 
an  appreciative  glance  at  Laura's  complexion,  "what 
will  he  care  about  his  soul  ?     Nothing." 

Their  enthusiasm  had  ample  opportunity  to  expand, 
their  mutual  bond  to  strengthen,  in  the  close  confines 
of  life  on  board  ship,  and  as  if  to  seal  it  and  sanctify 
it  permanently,  a  conversion  took  place  in  the  second 
saloon,  owning  Laura's  agency.  It  was  the  maid  of 
the  lady  in  the  cavalry  regiment,  a  hardened  heart,  as 
two  stewards  and  a  bandmaster  on  board  could  testify. 
Wlien  this  occurred,  the  time  that  was  to  elapse  be- 
tween Laura's  marriage  and  her  return  to  the  ranks 
was  shortened  to  one  week.  "  And  quite  long 
enough,"  Colonel  Markin  said,  "considering  how 
much  more  we  need  you  than  your  gentleman  does, 
my  dear  sister." 

It  was  plain  to  them  all  that  Colonel  Markin  had 


HILDA. 


297 


very  special  views  about  his  dear  sister.  The  other 
dear  sisters  looked  on  with  pleasurable  interest,  ad- 
mitting the  propriety  of  it,  as  Colonel  Markin  walked 
up  and  down  the  deck  with  Laura,  examining  her 
lovely  nature,  "  drawing  her  out "  on  the  subject  of 
her  faith  and  her  assurance.  It  was  natural,  as  he  told 
her,  that  in  her  peculiar  situation  she  should  have 
doubts  and  difficulties.  He  urged  her  to  lay  bare  her 
heart,  and  she  laid  it  bare.  One  evening — it  was 
heavenly  moonlight  on  the  Indian  Ocean,  and  they 
were  two  days  past  Aden  on  the  long  southeast  run 
to  Ceylon — she  came  and  stood  before  him  with  a 
small  packet  in  her  hand.  She  was  all  in  white,  and 
more  like  an  angel  than  Markin  expected  ever  to  see 
anything  in  this  world,  though  as  to  the  next  his  an- 
ticipations may  have  been  extravagant. 

"  Now  I  wonder,"  said  he,  "  where  you  are  going  to 
sit  down  ?  " 

A  youngster  in  the  Police  got  up  and  pushed  his 
chair  forward,  but  Laura  shook  her  head. 

"  I  am  going  out  there,"  she  said,  pointing  to  the 
furthermost  stern,  where  passengers  were  not  en- 
couraged to  sit,  "  and  I  want  to  consult  you." 

Markin  got  up.  **  If  there's  anything  pressin*  on 
your  mind,"  he  said,  "  you  can't  do  better." 

Laura  said  nothing  until  they  were  alone  with  the 
rushing  of  the  screw,  two  Lascars,  some  coils  of  rope, 
and  a  couple  of  brass  compasses.  Then  she  opened 
the  packet.  "  These,"  she  said,  "  these  are  pressing  on 
my  mind." 

She  held  out  a  string  of  pearls,  a  necklace  of  pearls 
and  turquoises,  a  heavy  band  bracelet,  studded,  Delhi 
fashion,  with  gems,  and  one  or  two  lesser  fantasies. 


298 


HILDA. 


"  Jewelry  I "  said  Markin.    "  Real  or  imitation  ?  " 

"  So  far  as  that  goes,  they  are  good.  Mr.  Lindsay 
gave  them  to  me.  But  what  have  I  to  do  with  jewels, 
the  very  emblem  of  the  folly  of  the  world,  the  desire 
that  itches  in  palms  that  crucify  Him  afresh  daily,  the 
price  of  sin  ?  "  She  leaned  against  the  masthead  as 
she  spoke.  The  wind  blew  her  hair  and  her  skirt  out 
toward  the  following  seas.  With  that  look  in  her 
eyes  she  seemed  a  creature  who  had  alighted  on  the 
ship  but  who  could  not  stay. 

Colonel  Markin  held  the  pearls  up  in  the  moonlight. 

"  They  must  have  cost  something  to  buy,"  he  said. 

Laura  was  silent. 

"  And  so  they're  a  trouble  to  you.  Have  you  taken 
them  to  the  Lord  in  prayer  ?  " 

"  Oh,  many  times." 

"Couldn't  seem  to  hear  any  answer?" 

"  The  only  answer  I  could  hear  was,  *  So  long  as  you 
have  them  I  will  not  speak  with  you.' " 

"  That  seems  pretty  plain  and  clear.  And  yet," 
said  the  Colonel,  fondling  the  turquoises,  "  nobody  can 
say  there's  any  harm  in  such  things,  especially  if  you 
don't  wear  them." 

"  Colonel,  they  are  my  great  temptation.  I  don't 
know  that  I  wouldn't  wear  them.  And  when  I  wear 
them  I  can  think  of  nothing  sacred,  nothing  holy. 
When  they  were  given  to  me  I  used — I  used  to  get  up 
in  the  night  to  look  at  them." 

"  Shall  I  lay  it  before  the  Almighty  ?  That  brace- 
let's got  a  remarkably  good  clasp." 

"  Oh  no — no !  I  must  part  with  them.  To-night  I 
can  do  it,  to-night " 

"  There's  nobody  on  this  ship  that  .v  ill  give  you  any 
price  for  them." 


HILDA. 


299 


"  I  would  not  t!iink  of  selling  them.  It  would  be 
sending  them  from  my  hands  to  do  harm  to  some 
other  poor  creature,  weaker  than  I ! " 

"  You  can't  return  them  to-night." 

"  I  wouldn't  return  them.-  That  would  be  the  same 
as  keeping  them." 

"  Then  what— oh,  I  see—"  exclaimed  Markin.  "  You 
want  to  give  them  to  the  Army !  Well,  in  my  capac- 
ity, on  behalf  of  General  Booth " 

"  No,"  cried  Laura,  with  sudden  excitement,  "  not 
that  either.  I  will  give  them  to  nobody.  But  this  is 
what  I  will  do !  "  She  seized  the  bracelet  and  flung 
it  far  out  into  the  opaline  track  of  the  vessel,  and  the 
smaller  objects,  before  her  companion  could  stop  her, 
followed  it.    Then  he  caught  her  wrist. 

**  Stop  ! "  he  cried.  "  You've  gone  off  your  head — 
you've  got  fever.  You're  acting  wicked  with  that 
jewelry.     Stop  and  let  us  reason  it  out  together." 

She  already  had  the  turquoises,  and  with  a  jerk  of 
her  left  hand  she  freed  it  and  threw  them  after  the 
rest.  The  necklace  caught  the  handrail  as  it  fell,  and 
Markin  made  a  vain  spring  to  save  it.  He  turned  and 
stared  at  Laura,  who  stood  fighting  the  greatest  puis- 
sance of  feeling  she  had  known,  looking  at  the  pearls. 
As  he  stared,  she  kissed  them  twice,  and  then,  leaning 
over  the  ship's  side,  let  them  slowly  slide  out  of  her 
fingers  and  fall  into  the  waves  below.  The  moonlight 
gave  them  a  divine  gleam  as  they  fell.  She  turned  to 
Markin  with  tears  in  her  eyes.  "  Now,"  she  faltered, 
"  I  can  be  happy  again.     But  not  to-night." 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 


While  the  Coromandel  was  throbbing  out  her  reg- 
ulation number  of  knots  toward  Colombo,  October 
was  passing  over  Bengal.  It  went  with  lethargy, 
the  rains  were  too  close  on  its  heels ;  but  at  the  end 
of  the  long  hot  days,  when  the  resplendent  sun  struck 
down  on  the  glossy  trees  and  the  over-lush  Maidan, 
there  often  stole  through  Calcutta  a  breath  of  the 
coming  respite  of  December.  The  blue  smoke  of  the 
people's  cooking  fires  began  to  hang  again  in  the 
streets,  the  pungent  smell  of  it  was  pleasant  in  the  still 
air.  The  south  wind  turned  back  at  the  Sunder- 
bunds ;  instead  of  it,  one  met  around  corners  a  sudden 
crispness  that  stayed  just  long  enough  to  be  recog- 
nised and  melted  damply  away.  A  week  might  have 
two  or  three  of  such  promises  and  foretastes. 

Hilda  Howe,  approaching  the  end  of  her  probation 
at  the  Baker  Institution,  threw  the  dormitory  window 
wide  to  them,  went  out  to  seek  them.  They  brought 
her  a  new  stirring  of  vitality,  something  deep  within 
her  leaped  up  responding  to  the  voucher  the  evenings 
brought  that  presently  they  would  bring  something 
new  and  different.  She  vibrated  to  an  irrepressible 
pulse  of  accord  with  that:  it  made  her  hand  strong 
and  her  brain  clear  for  the  unimportant  matters  that 
remained  within  the  scope  of  the  monotonous  mo- 


HILDA. 


301 


ment.  Her  spirits  gained  an  enviable  lightness,  she 
began  again  to  see  beautiful,  touching  things  in  the 
life  that  carried  her  on  with  it.  She  explained  to 
Stephen  Arnold  that  she  was  immensely  happy  at 
having  passed  the  last  of  her  nursing  examinations. 

"  I  hardly  dare  ask  you,"  he  said,  "  what  you  are 
going  to  do  now." 

He  looked  furtive  and  anxious;  she  saw  that  he 
did. 

"  I  hardly  dare  ask  myself,"  she  answered,  and  was 
immediately  conscious  that  for  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  their  relations  she  had  spoken  to  him  that 
which  was  expedient. 

"  I  hope  the  Sisters  are  not  trying  to  influence 
you,"  he  said  firmly. 

"  Fancy !  "  she  cried  irrelevantly.  "  I  heard  the 
other  day  that  Sister  Ann  Frances  had  described  me 
as  the  pride  of  the  Baker  Institution  !  "  She  laughed 
with  delight  at  the  humour  of  it,  and  he  smiled  too. 
When  she  laughed  he  seemed  nearly  always  now  to 
have  confidence  enough  to  smile  too. 

"  You  might  ask  for  another  six  months." 

"  Heavens,  no !     No — I  shall  make  up  my  mind." 

"Then  you  may  go  away,"  Arnold  said.  They 
were  standing  at  the  crossing  of  the  wide  red  road 
from  which  they  would  go  in  different  directions. 
She  saw  that  the  question  was  momentous  to  him. 
She  also  saw  how  curiously  the  sun  sallowed  him 
and  how  many  more  hollows  he  had  in  his  face  than 
most  people.  She  had  a  pathetic  impression  of  the 
figure  he  made,  in  his  dusty  gown  and  shoes.  "  God's 
wayfarer,"  she  murmured. 

"  Come  too,"  she  said  aloud.  "  Come  and  be  a  Clarke 


5oa 


HILDA. 


Brother  where  the  climatic  conditions  suit  you  better 
The  world  wants  Clarke  Brothers  everywhere." 

He  looked  at  her  and  tried  to  smile,  but  his  lips 
quivered.  He  opened  them  in  an  effort  to  speak, 
gave  it  up,  and  turned  away  silently,  lifting  his  hat! 
Hilda  watched  him  for  an  instant  as  he  went.  His 
figure  took  strange  proportions  through  the  tears  in 
her  eyes,  and  she  marvelled  at  the  lightness  with 
which  she  had  touched,  had  almost  revealed,  her 
heart's  desire. 


IjHH 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

"  I  KNEW  it  would  happen  in  the  end,"  Hilda  said, 
"  and  it  has  happened.  The  Archdeacon  has  asked 
me  to  tea." 

She  was  speaking  to  Alicia  Livingstone  in  the 
dormitory,  changing  at  the  same  time  for  a  "  turn"  at 
the  hospital.  It  was  six  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 
Alicia's  landau  stood  at  the  door  of  the  Baker  Institu- 
tion. She  had  come  to  find  that  Miss  Howe  was  just 
going  on  duty  and  could  not  be  taken  for  a  drive. 

"When?"  asked  Alicia,  staring  out  of  the  window 
at  the  crows  in  a  tamarind  tree. 

"  Last  Saturday.  He  said  he  had  promised  some 
friends  of  his  the  pleasure  of  meeting  me.  They  had 
besieged  him,  he  said,  and  they  were  his  best  friends, 
on  all  his  committees." 

"  Only  ladies  ?  "  The  crows,  with  a  shriek  of  de- 
fiance at  nothing  in  particular,  having  flown  away. 
Miss  Livingstone  transferred  her  attention. 

"Bless  me,  yes.  What  Archdeacon  has  dear  men 
friends!     And  lesquelles pense-tUy  mon  Dieu  !  ** 

"  Lesquelles  ?'* 

"  Mrs.  Jack  Forrester,  Mrs.  Fitz — what  you  may 
call  him  up  on  the  frontier,  the  Brigadier  gentleman — 
Lady  Dolly ! " 

"  You  were  well  chaperoned." 

"  And— my  dear—he  didn't  ask  a  single  Sister !  " 


304 


HILDA. 


Hilda  turned  upon  her  a  face  which  appeared  still  to 
glow  with  the  stimulus  of  the  Archdiaconal  function. 
"And — it  was  wicked  considering  the  occasion — I 
dropped  the  character.  I  let  myself  out !  " 
"  You  didn't  shock  the  Archdeacon  ?  " 
"  Not  in  the  least.  But,  my  dear  love,  did  you  ever 
permit  yourself  the  reflection  that  the  Venerable 
Gambell  is  a  bachelor  ?  " 

"  Hilda,    you    shall    not !      We  all   love  him— you 
shall  not  lead  him  astray  !  " 

•*  You  would  not  think  of — the  altar—  ?  " 
Miss  Livingstone's  pale  small  smile  fell  like  a  snow- 
flake  upon  Hilda's  mood  and  was  swallowed  up. 
"You  are  very  preposterous,"  she  said.  "Go  on. 
You  always  amuse  one."  Then,  as  if  Hilda  s  going  on 
were  precisely  the  thing  she  could  not  quite  endure, 
she  said  quickly,  "The  Coromandel  is  telegraphed 
from  Colombo  to-day." 
"Ah!"  said  Hilda. 

"  He  leaves  for  Madras  to-morrow.  The  thing  is  to 
take  place  there,  you  know." 

"  Then  nothing  but  shipwreck  can  save  him." 
"  Nothing  but— what  a  horrible  idea  !  Don't  you 
t  link  they  may  be  happy  ?  I  really  think  they  may." 
"There  is  not  one  of  the  elements  that  give  people, 
wliea  they  commit  the  paramount  stupidity  of  marry- 
ing,  reason  to  hope  that  they  may  not  be  miserable. 
Not  v.rie.  If  he  were  a  strong  man  I  should  pity  him 
less.  But  he's  not.  He's  immense!/  dependent  on 
his  tastes,  his  friends,  his  circumstances." 

Alicia  looked  at  Hilda;  her  glance  betrayed  an 
attention  caught  upon  an  accidental  phrase.  She  did 
not  repeat  it,  she  turned  it  over  in  her  mind. 


HILDA. 


305 


'  ■! 


You  are  thinking,"  Hilda  said  accusingly.    "What 
are  you  thinking  about  ?  " 

"  Oh,  nothing.  I  saw  Stephen  yesterday,  I  thought 
him  looking  rather  wretched." 

A  shadow  of  grave  consideration  winged  ''.uelf  across 
Hilda's  eyes. 

"He  works  so  much  too  hard,"  she  said.  "  It  is  an 
appalling  waste.     But  he  will  offer  himself  up." 

Alicia  looked  unsatisfied.  "  He  brought  Mr.  Lappe 
to  tea,"  Miss  Howe  said. 

The  shadow  went.  "  Should  you  think  Brother 
Lappe,"  she  demanded,  "  specially  fitted  for  the  cure 
of  souls  ?  Never,  never,  could  I  allow  the  process  of 
my  regeneration  to  come  through  Brother  Lappe. 
He  has  such  a  little  nose,  and  such  wide  pink  cheeks, 
and  such  fat,  sloping  shoulders.  Dear  succulent 
Brother  Lappe  !  ' 

A  Sister  passed  through  the  dormitory  on  a  visit  of 
inspection.  Alicia  bowed  sweetly  and  the  Sister  in- 
clined herself  briefly  with  a  cloistered  smile.  As  she 
disappeared,  Hilda  threw  a  black  skirt  over  her  head, 
making  a  veil  of  it  flowing  backward,  and  rendered 
the  visit,  the  noiseless  measured  step,  the  little  dep- 
recating movements  of  inquiry,  the  benevolent  rec- 
ognition of  a  visitor  from  a  world  where  people  carried 
parasols  and  wore  spotted  muslins.  She  even  effaced 
herself  at  the  door  on  the  track  of  the  other  to  make 
it  perfect,  and  came  back  in  the  happy  expansion  of 
an  artistic  effort  to  find  Alicia's  regard  penetrated 
with  the  light  of  a  new  conviction. 

"  Hilda,"  she  said,  "I  should  like  to  know  what  this 
last  year  has  really  been  to  you." 

"  It  has  been  very  valuable,"  Miss  Howe  replied. 


3o6 


HILDA. 


Then  she  turned  quickly  away  to  hang  up  the  black 
petticoat,  and  stood  like  that,  shaking  out  its  folds,  so 
that  Alicia  might  not  see  anything  curious  in  her  face 
as  she  heard  her  own  words  and  understood  what  they 
meant. 

A  probationer  came  rapidly  along  the  dormitory  to 
where  Hilda  stood.  She  had  the  olive  cheeks  and  the 
liquid  eyes  of  the  country ;  her  lips  were  parted  in  a 

smile. 

"  Miss  Howe,"  she  said  in  the  quick,  clicking  sylla- 
bles of  her  race,  "  Sister  Margaret  wishes  you  to  come 
immediately  to  the  surgical  ward.  A  case  has  come 
in,  and  Miss  Gonsalvez  is  there,  but  Sister  Margaret 
will  not  be  bothered  with  Miss  Gonsalvez.  She  says 
you  are  due  by  right  in  five  minutes"— the  mes- 
senger's smile  broadened  irresponsibly,  and  she  put  a 
fondling  touch  upon  Hilda's  apron  string — "so  will 
you  please  to  make  haste?  " 

"What's  the  case?"  asked  Hilda,  "I  hope  it  isn't 
another  ship's-hold  accident."  But  Alicia,  a  shade 
paler  than  before,  put  up  her  hand.  "Wait  till  I'm 
gone,"  she  said,  and  went  quickly.  The  girl  had 
opened  her  lips,  however,  but  to  say  that  she  didn't 
know,  she  had  only  been  seized  to  take  the  message, 
though  it  must  be  something  serious,  since  they  had 
sent  for  both  the  resident  surgeons. 


p 


w^ 
W 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

Doctor  Livingstone's  concern  was  personal,  that 
was  plain  in  tlie  way  he  stood  looking  at  the  floor  of 
the  corridor  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  before 
Hilda  reached  him.  Regret  was  written  all  over  the 
lines  of  his  pausing  figure,  with  the  compressed  inita- 
tion  which  saved  that  feeling,  in  the  Englishman's 
way,  from  being  too  obvious. 

"  This  is  a  bad  business.  Miss  Howe." 

"  I've  just  come  over— I  haven't  heard.     Who  is  it  ?  " 

"  It's  my  cousin,  poor  chap— Arnold,  the  padre. 
He's  been  badly  knifed  in  the  bazaar." 

The  news  passed  over  her  and  left  her  looking  with 
a  curious  face  at  chance.  It  was  lifted  a  little,  with 
composed  lips,  and  eyes  which  refused  to  be  taken  by 
surprise.  There  was  inquiry  in  them,  also  a  defence, 
a  retreat.  Chance  looking  back  saw  an  invincible 
silent  readiness  and  a  pallor  which  might  be  that  of 
any  woman.  But  the  doctor  was  also  looking,  so  she 
said,  "  That  is  very  sad,"  and  moved  near  enough  to 
the  wall  to  put  her  hand  against  it.  She  was  not 
faint,  but  the  wall  was  a  fact  on  which  one  could,  for 
the  moment,  rely. 

"  They've  got  the  man— one  of  those  Cabuli  money- 
lenders. The  police  had  no  trouble  with  him.  He 
said  it  was  the  order  of  Allah— the  brute.  Stray  case 
of  fanaticism,  I  suppose.  It  seems  Arnold  was  walk- 
ing along  as  usual,  without  a  notion,  and  the  fellow 


3o8 


HILDA. 


sprang  on  him  and  in  two  seconds  the  thing  was  done. 
Hadn't  a  chance,  poor  beggar." 

"  Where  is  it  ?  " 

"  Root  of  the  left  lung.  About  five  inches  deep. 
The  artery  pretty  well  cut  through,  I  fancy." 

"Then " 

"  Oh  no — we  can't  do  anything.  The  haemorrhage 
must  be  tremendous.  But  he  may  live  through  the 
night.     Are  you  going  to  Sister  Margaret  ?  " 

His  nod  took  it  for  granted  and  he  went  on.  Hilda 
walked  slowly  forward,  her  head  bent,  with  absorbed, 
uncertain  steps.  A  bar  of  evening  sunlight  came  be- 
fore her,  she  looked  up  and  stepped  outside  the  open 
door.  She  was  handling  this  thing  that  had  happened, 
taking  possession  of  it.  It  lay  in  her  mind  in  the 
midst  of  a  suddenly  stricken  and  tenderly  saddened 
consciousness.  It  lay  there  passively  ;  it  did  not  rise 
and  grapple  with  her,  it  was  a  thing  that  had  happened 
— in  Bura  Bazaar.  The  pity  of  it  assailed  her.  Tears 
came  into  her  eyes,  and  an  infinite  grieved  solicitude 
gathered  about  her  heart.  "  So  ?  "  she  said  to  herself, 
thinking  that  he  was  young  and  loved  his  work,  and 
that  now  his  hand  would  be  stayed  from  the  use  it 
had  found.  One  of  the  ugly  outrages  of  life,  leaving 
nothing  on  the  mouth  but  that  brief  acceptance.  It 
came  to  her  with  a  note  of  the  profound  and  of  the 
supreme.  "  So,"  she  said,  and  pressed  her  lips  till 
they  stopped  trembling,  and  went  into  the  hospital. 

She  asked  a  question  or  two,  in  search  of  Sister 
Margaret  and  the  new  case.  It  was  "located,"  an 
assistant  surgeon  told  her,  in  Private  Ward  Number  2. 
She  went  more  and  more  slowly  toward  Private  Ward 
Number  2. 


HILDA.  309 

The  door  was  open.  She  stood  in  it  for  an  instant 
with  eyes  nerved  to  receive  the  tragedy.  The  room 
seemed  curiously  empty  of  any  such  thing.  A  door 
opposite  was  also  open,  with  an  arched  verandah  out- 
side ;  the  low  sun  streamed  through  this  upon  the 
floor  with  its  usual  tranquillity.  Beyond  the  arches, 
netted  to  keep  the  crows  away,  it  made  pictures  with 
the  tops  of  the  trees.  There  was  the  small  iron  bed 
with  the  confused  outline  under  the  bedclothes,  very 
quiet,  and  the  Sister — the  whitewashed  wall  rose  sharp 
behind  her  black  draperies — sitting  with  a  book  in  her 
hands.  Some  scraps  of  lint  were  on  the  floor  beside  the 
bed  and  hardly  anything  else,  except  the  silence,  which 
had  almost  a  presence,  and  a  faint  smell  of  carbolic 
acid,  and  a  certain  feeling  of  impotence  and  abandon- 
ment and  waiting  which  seemed  to  be  in  the  air. 
Arnold  moved  on  the  pillow  and  saw  her  standing  in 
the  door.  The  bars  of  the  bed's  foot  were  in  the  way. 
He  tried  to  lift  his  head  to  surmount  the  obstruction, 
and  the  Sister  perceived  her  too. 

"  I  think  absolutely  still  was  our  order,  wasn't  it, 
Mr.  Arnold  ? "  she  said,  with  her  little  pink  smile. 
"And  I'm  afraid  Miss  Howe  isn't  in  time  to  be  of 
much  use  to  us,  is  she  ? "  It  was  the  bedside  pleas- 
antry that  expected  no  reply,  that  indeed  forbade  one. 

"  I'm  sorry,"  Hilda  said.  As  she  moved  into  the 
room  she  detached  her  eyes  from  Arnold's,  feeling  as 
she  did  so  that  it  was  like  tearing  something. 

**  There  was  so  little  to  do,"  Sister  Margaret  said. 
"  Surgeon-Major  Wills  saw  at  once  where  the  mis- 
chief lay.  Nothing  disagreeable  was  necessary,  was  it, 
Mr.  Arnold  ?  Perfect  quiet,  perfect  rest — that's  an 
easy  prescription  to  take."    She  had  rather  prominent, 


310  HILDA. 

very  blue  eyes,  and  an  aquiline  nose  and  a  small  firm 
mouth,  and  her  pink  cheeks  were  beginning  to  be  a 
little  pendulous  with  age.  Hilda  gazed  at  her  silently, 
noting  about  her  authority  and  her  flowing  draperies 
something  classical.  Was  she  like  one  of  the  Fates? 
She  approached  the  bed  to  do  something  to  the  pillow 
— Hilda  had  an  impulse  to  push  her  away  with  the 
cry,  "  It  is  not  time  yet — Atropos  !  " 

"  I  must  go  now  for  an  hour  or  so,"  the  Sister  went 
on.  "  That  poor  creature  in  Number  6  needs  me ; 
they  daren't  give  her  any  more  morphia.  You  don't 
need  it — happy  boy !  "  she  said  to  Stephen,  and  at  the 
look  he  sent  her  for  answer  she  turned  rather  quickly 
to  the  door.  Dear  Sister,  she  was  none  of  the  Fates. 
She  was  obliged  to  give  directions  to  Hilda,  standing 
in  the  door  with  her  back  turned.  Happily  for  a  de- 
served reputation  for  self-command  they  were  few. 
It  was  chief  and  absolute  that  no  one  should  be 
admitted.  A  bulletin  had  been  put  up  at  the  hospital 
door  for  the  information  of  inquiries ;  later  on,  when 
the  doctor  came  again,  there  would  be  another. 

She  went  away  and  they  were  left  alone.  The  sun 
on  the  floor  had  vanished  ;  a  yellowness  stood  in  its 
place  with  a  grey  background,  the  background  gain- 
ing, coming  on.  Always  his  eyes  were  upon  her,  she 
had  given  hers  back  to  him  and  he  seemed  satisfied. 
She  moved  closer  to  the  bed  and  stood  beside  him. 
Since  there  was  nothing  to  do  there  was  nothing  to 
say.  Stephen  put  out  his  hand  and  touched  a  fold  of 
her  dress. 

The  room  filled  itself  with  something  that  had  not 
been  there  before.  In  obedience  to  it  Hilda  knelt 
down  beside  the  bed  and  pressed  her  forehead  against 


HILDA.  311 

the  hand  upon  the  covering,  the   hand  that  had  so 
little  more  to  do.    Then  Arnold  spoke. 

"  You  dear  woman  !  "  he  said.    "  You  dear  woman  ! " 

She  kept  her  head  bowed  like  that  and  did  not  an- 
swer. It  was  his  happiest  moment.  One  might  say 
he  had  lived  for  this.  Her  tears  fell  upon  his  hand,  a 
kind  of  baptism  for  his  heart.     He  spoke  again. 

"  We  must  bear  this,"  he  panted.  "  It  is — less 
cruel — than  it  seems.  You  don't  know  how  much  it 
is  for  the  best." 

She  lifted  her  wet  face.  "  You  mustn't  talk,"  she 
faltered. 

"  What  difference — "  he  did  not  finish  the  sentence. 
His  words  were  too  few  to  waste.  He  paused  and 
made  another  effort. 

"  If  this  had  not  happened  I  would  have  been — 
counted — among  the  unfaithful,"  he  said.  "  I  know 
now.  I  would  have  abandoned — my  post.  And 
gladly — without  regret — for  you." 

"  Ah  !  "  Hilda  cried  with  a  vivid  note  of  pain,  "  I 
am  sorry  !     I  am  sorry !  " 

She  gazed  with  a  face  of  real  tragedy  at  the  form  of 
her  captive,  delivered  to  her  in  the  bonds  of  death.  A 
fresh  pang  visited  her  with  the  thought  that  in  the 
mystery  of  the  ordering  of  things  she  might  have  had 
to  do  with  the  forging  of  those  shackles. 

"  My  God    is  a   jealous   God,"  Arnold   said.     "  He 
has  delivered  me — into  His  own  hands — for  the  hon- 
our of  His  name.     I  acknowledge — I  am  content." 
I  "  No,  indeed  no  !     It  was  a  wicked,  horrible  chance  ! 

Don't  charge  your  God  with  it." 

His  smile  was  very  sweet,  but  it  paid  the  least  pos- 
sible attention.  "  You  did  love  me,"  he  said.  He 
spoke  as  if  he  were  already  dead. 


312 


HILDA. 


"  I  did  indeed,"  Hilda  replied,  and  bent  her  shamed 
head  upon  her  hands  again  in  the  confession.  It  is 
not  strange  that  he  heard  only  the  affirmation  in  it. 

He  stroked  her  hair.  "  It  is  good  to  know  that," 
he  said,  "  very  good.  I  should  have  married  you." 
He  went  on  with  sudden  boldness  and  a  new  note  of 
strength  in  his  voice.  "  Think  of  that !  You  would 
have  been  mine — to  protect  and  work  for.  We  should 
have  gone  together  to  England — where  I  could  easily 
have  got  a  curacy — easily." 

Hilda  looked  up.  "  Would  you  like  to  marry  me 
now  ? "  she  asked  eagerly,  but  he  shook  his  head. 
"  You  don't  understand,"  he  said.  "  It  is  the  dear  sin 
God  has  turned  my  back  upon." 

Then  it  came  to  her  that  he  had  asked  for  no 
caress.  He  was  going  unassoiled  to  his  God,  with  the 
divine  indifference  of  the  dying.  Only  his  imagination 
looked  backward  and  forward.  And  she  thought,  "  It 
is  a  little  light  flame  that  I  have  lit  with  my  own  taper 
that  has  gone  out,  and  presently  the  grave  will  extin- 
guish that."  She  sat  quiet  and  sombre  in  the  grow- 
ing darkness  and  presently  Arnold  slept. 

He  slept  through  the  bringing  of  a  lamp,  the  arrival 
of  flowers,  subdued  knocks  of  inquirers  who  would  not 
be  stayed  by  the  bulletin — the  visit  of  Surgeon-Major 
Wills,  who  felt  his  pulse  without  wakening  him. 
"  Holding  out  wonderfully,"  the  doctor  said.  "  Don't 
rouse  him  for  the  soup.  He'll  go  out  in  about  six 
hours  without  any  pain.     May  not  wake  at  all." 

The  door  opened  again  to  admit  the  probationer 
come  to  relieve  Miss  Howe.  Hilda  beckoned  her  into 
the  corridor.  "  You  can  go  back,"  she  said ;  "  I  will 
take  your  turn." 


HILDA. 


313 


"  But  the  Sister  Superior — you  know  how  particular 
about  the  rules — ' 

''  Say  nothing  about  it.  Go  to  bed.  I  am  not  com- 
ing." 

"Then,  Miss  Howe,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  report  it." 

"  Report  and  be — report,  if  you  like.  There  is 
nothing  for  you  to  do  here  to-night,"  and  Hilda  softly 
closed  the  door.  There  was  a  whispered  expostula- 
tion when  Sister  Margaret  came  back,  but  Miss  Howe 
said,  "  It  is  arranged,"  and  with  a  little  silent  nod  of 
appreciation  the  Sister  settled  into  her  chair,  her  finger 
marking  a  place  in  her  Church  Service.  Hilda  sat 
nearer  to  the  bed,  her  elbow  on  the  table,  shading 
her  eyes  from  the  lamp,  and  watched. 

"  Is  it  not  odd  ?  "  whispered  Sister  Margaret,  as  the 
night  wore  on.  "He  has  refused  to  be  confessed  before 
he  goes.  He  will  not  see  the  Brother  Superior — or 
any  of  them.     Strange,  is  it  not?  " 

Together  they  watched  the  quick,  short  breathing. 
It  seemed  strangely  impossible  to  sleep  against  such 
odds.  They  saw  the  lines  of  the  face  grow  sharper 
and  whiter,  the  dark  eye-sockets  sink  to  a  curious 
roundness,  a  greyness  gather  about  the  mouth. 
There  were  times  when  they  looked  at  each  other  in 
the  last  surmise.  Yet  the  feeble  pulse  persisted — 
persisted. 

"  I  believe  now,"  said  Sister  Margaret,  "  that  he 
may  go  on  like  this  until  the  morning.  I  am  going 
to  take  half  an  hour's  nap.  Rouse  me  at  once  if  he 
wakes,"  and  she  took  an  attitude  of  casual  repose, 
turning  the  prayer-book  open  on  her  knee  for  readier 
use,  open  at  "  Prayers  for  the  Dying." 

The  jackals  had  wailed  themselves  out,  and  there 


314  HILDA. 

was  a  long,  dark  period  when  nothing  but  the  sudden 
cry  of  a  night  bird  in  the  hospital  garden  came 
between  Hilda  and  the  very  vivid  perception  she  had 
at  that  hour  of  the  value  and  significance  of  the 
earthly  lot.  She  lifted  her  head  and  listened  to  that ; 
it  seemed  a  comment.  Then  a  harsh  quarrelling  of 
dogs — Christian  dogs — arose  in  the  distance  and  died 
away,  and  again  there  was  night  and  silence.  Sud- 
denly the  long  singing  drone  of  a  steamer's  signal 
came  across  the  city  from  the  river,  once,  twice, 
thrice;  and  presently  the  sparrows  began  their 
twittering  in  the  bushes  near  the  verandah,  an  unex- 
pected unanimous  bird  talk  that  died  as  suddenly 
and  as  irrelevantly  away.  A  conservancy  cart  lum- 
bered past,  creaking,  the  far  shrill  whistle  of  an  a- 
wakening  factory  cut  the  air  from  Howrah,  the  first 
solitary  foot  smote  through  the  dawn  upon  the  nearest 
pavement.  The  light  showed  grey  beyond  the 
scanty  curtains.  A  noise  of  something  being  moved 
reverberated  in  the  hospital  below,  and  Arnold 
opened  his  eyes.  They  made  him  in  a  manner  him- 
self again,  and  he  fixed  them  upon  Hilda  as  if  they 
could  never  alter.  She  leaned  nearer  him  and  made 
a  sign  of  inquiry  toward  the  sleeping  Sister,  with  the 
farewells,  the  commendations  of  poor  mortality 
speeding  itself  fortk,  lying  upon  her  lap.  Arnold 
comprehended,  and  she  was  amazed  to  see  the  mask 
of  his  face  change  itself  with  a  faint  smile  as  he  shook 
his  head.  He  made  a  little  movement ;  she  saw 
what  he  wanted  and  took  his  hand  in  hers.  The 
smile  was  still  in  his  eyes  as  he  looked  at  her  and 
then  at  the  cheated  Sister. 
So  in  the  end  he  trusted  the  new  wings  of  his  mor- 


HILDA. 


3>5 


tal  love  to  bear  his  soul  to  its  immortality.  They 
carried  their  burden  buoyantly,  it  was  such  a  little 
way.  The  lamp  was  still  holding  its  own  against  the 
paleness  from  the  windows  when  the  meaning  finally 
went  out  of  his  clasp  of  Hilda's  hand,  without  a  strug- 
gle to  stay,  and  she  saw  that  in  an  instant  when  she 
was  not  looking  he  had  closed  his  eyes  upon  the 
world.  She  sat  on  beside  him  for  a  long  time  after 
that,  watching  tenderly,  and  would  not  withdraw  her 
hand — it  seemed  an  abandonment. 

Three  hours  later  Miss  Howe,  passing  out  of  the 
hospital  gate,  was  overtaken  by  Duff  Lindsay,  riding, 
with  a  look  of  singular  animation  and  vigour.  He 
flung  himself  off  his  horse  to  speak  to  her,  and  as  he 
approached  he  drew  from  his  inner  coat-pocket  the 
brown  envelope  of  a  telegram. 

"  Good-morning,"  he  said.  "  You  do  look  fagged. 
I  have  a — curious — piece  of  news." 

"  Alicia  told  me  that  you  were  starting  early  this 
morning  for  Madras!  " 

"  I  should  have  been  but  for  this." 

"  Read  it  to  me,"  Hilda  said,  "  I'm  tired." 

"  Oh,  do  you  very  much  mind  ?     I  would  rather " 

She  took  the  missive ;  it  was  dated  the  day  before, 
Colombo,  and  read : 

"  Do  not  expect  me.  Was  married  this  morning  to 
Colonel  Markin,  S.  A.  We  may  not  be  unequally 
yoked  together  with  unbelievers.     Glory  be  to  God. 

"Laura  Markin." 

She  raised  her  eyes  to  his  with  the  gravest,  saddest 
irony. 

"  Then  you — ^you  also  are  delivered,"  she  said.    But 


3i6  HILDA. 

he  said,  "What  ?"  without  special  heed  ;  and  I  doubt 
whether  he  ever  took  the  trouble  to  understand. 

"One  hopes  he  isn't  a  brute,"  Lindsay  went  on  with 
most  impersonal  solicitude,  "and  can  support  her.  I 
suppose  there  isn't  any  way  one  could  do  anything  for 
her.  I  heard  a  story  only  yesterday  about  a  girl 
changing  her  mind  on  the  way  out.  By  Jove,  I  didn't 
suppose  it  would  happen  to  me  !  " 

"If  you  are  hurt  anywhere,"  Hilda  said,  absently, 
"it  is  only  your  vanity,  I  fancy." 

"Ah,  my  vanity  is  very  sore."  He  paused  for  an 
instant,  wondering  to  find  so  little  expansion  in  her. 
"  I  came  to  ask  after  Arnold,"  he  said.     "  How  is  he  ?  " 

"  He  is  dead.  He  died  at  half-past  five  this  morn- 
mg. 

She  left  him  with  even  less  than  her  usual  circum- 
stance, and  turned  in  at  the  gate  of  the  Baker  Institu- 
tion.    It  happened  to  be  the  last  day  of  her  probation. 

There  has  never  been  any  difficulty  in  explaining 
Lindsay's  marriage  with  Alicia  Livingstone  even  to 
himself.  The  reasons  for  it,  indeed,  were  so  many  and 
so  obvious  that  he  wondered  often  why  they  had  not 
struck  him  before.  But  it  is  worth  noting,  perhaps, 
that  the  immediate  precipitating  cause  arose  in  one 
evening  service  at  the  Cathedral,  where  it  had  its  birth 
in  the  very  individual  charm  of  the  nape  of  Alicia's 
neck,  as  she  knelt  upon  her  hassock  in  the  fitting  and 
graceful  act  of  the  responses.  His  instincts  in  these 
matters  seem  to  have  had  a  generous  range,  consider- 
ing the  tenets  he  was  born  to,  but  it  was  tp  him  then 
a  delightful  reflection,  often  since  repeated,  that  in  the 
sheltered  garden  of  delicate  perfumes  where  this  sweet 


HILDA. 


317 


person  took  her  spiritual  pleasure  there  was  no  rank 
vegetation. 

It  is  much  to  Miss  Hilda  Howe's  credit  that  amid 
the  overwhelming  distractions  of  her  most  successful 
London  season  she  never  quite  abandons  these  two  to 
the  social  joys  that  circle  round  the  Ochterlony  Monu- 
ment  and  the  arid  scenic  consolations   of  the  Maidan 
Her  own  experience  there  is  one  of  the  things,  I  fancy, 
that  make  her  fond  of  saying  that  the  stage  is  the 
merest  cardboard  presentation,  and  that  one  day  she 
means  to   eave  it,  to  coax  back  to  her  bosom  the  life 
wh.ch  ,s  her  heritage  in  the  wider,  simpler  ways  of 
the  world.      She  never  mentions  that  experience  more 
directly  or  less  ardently.     But  I  fear  the  promise   I 
have  quoted  is  one  that  she  makes  too  often 


